Oral Answers to Questions

SCOTLAND

The Secretary of State was asked—

Scottish Parliament

John Baron: When she will publish the results of her consultation on the size of the Scottish Parliament.

Helen Liddell: I hope to be able to make a decision before the end of the year.

John Baron: I thank the Secretary of State for that response, but given that at present there are 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament, each representing on average 25,000 constituents, whereas, on average, the figure south of the border is closer to 70,000, and given that politicians can often be the problem rather than the solution, does the right hon. Lady agree that the pleas of most MSPs should be ignored and that the interests of the Scottish people would be better served by a smaller, more effective and less expensive Parliament, as envisaged by the Scotland Act 1998?

Helen Liddell: I really wish that when Members pick up hand-out questions from the Tory Whips they would do a wee bit of homework before they come into the Chamber. There are 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament, 73 of whom are elected under the first-past-the-post system and the rest of whom are elected under the list system. Indeed, it is the list system that has allowed the Scottish Conservatives some life after death in Scotland.
	There has been a lengthy consultation exercise and people who have a genuine interest in the success of devolution have given a range of responses to it. I shall take those responses fully into account, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that we have reached this stage because of a consensus built up across civic Scotland, of which the Scottish Conservative party is not a part. I shall seek a conclusion that builds on that consensus.

Ernie Ross: As someone who was involved in the project from day one, I never saw the Conservatives express any interest whatever. All they did was to tell us how useless it would be and that the Scottish people would reject it. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Scottish Conservatives have refused to make the—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Secretary of State cannot answer for the Conservative party. That is not what she is here for.

Peter Duncan: Has the Secretary of State had time to consider our proposals for a leaner, fitter, more focused Parliament, with fewer MSPs, which would go a long way towards restoring public confidence in the Parliament as a whole? Given that the Deputy Minister for Justice in Scotland was reported as calling firefighters Xfascists", does she agree that far too many MSPs and far too many Ministers in Scotland are undeserving of public support?

Helen Liddell: I take this opportunity to welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new responsibilities on the Front Bench. It is an historic day to see at the Dispatch Box an elected Conservative representing a Scottish constituency, and I wish him well in his deliberations.
	On the Government Benches, we know that the Scottish Conservative party does not wish the Scottish Parliament well. The 18 years of Conservative Government helped to focus people's attention on the need for a Scottish Parliament. I shall take into account all the representations made to me, including those from the Scottish Conservative party. They will be taken into account when I make my decision, which will, I hope, be shortly.

Pete Wishart: Given that the Secretary of State is the only person to have seen the consultation document, she will have had plenty of time to come to a view about the future size of the Scottish Parliament. Does she agree with the unholy alliance of Labour Back Benchers and Conservatives who believe that the numbers must be reduced, or does she agree with me, the rest of the Scottish National party and the overwhelming majority of MSPs that 129 should be retained? The question is straightforward and simple: does the Secretary of State believe that 129 should be retained? Yes or no?

Helen Liddell: I have to respect the traditions of the House. I entered into a consultation exercise, and I am not the only person who has seen the consultation document: 800 copies have been distributed, 1,300 hits have been made on the Scotland Office website, and there have been 230 replies. I shall deliberate on them. I have to point out to the hon. Gentleman that the reason that there is a Scottish Tory at the Dispatch Box is the failure of the Scottish National party in Galloway.

Rosemary McKenna: It ill behoves the SNP to make any comment about the size of the Scottish Parliament, given that neither the SNP nor the Conservative party were part of the process in the first place.
	Will my right hon. Friend reassure us that her response to the document will be based on the constitutional convention consensus, and that it will take everyone's views on board?

Helen Liddell: I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and I congratulate her on the work that she did in the Scottish constitutional convention. There has been a wide range of responses from people, and I have asked for some additional work to be done on those responses because I am anxious to reach a conclusion that meets the needs of the broad spectrum of people who have responded to the consultation exercise.

Scottish Fishing Industry

Chris Grayling: What assessment she has made of prospects for employment in the Scottish fishing industry.

Andrew Selous: What assessment she has made of employment prospects in the Scottish fishing industry.

Helen Liddell: Future employment in the Scottish fishing industry will depend on the size of fish stocks and on the regulation of fish catches. The Government and the Scottish Executive are examining those issues with a view to securing a sustainable future for the industry.

Chris Grayling: I am sure that the Secretary of State will agree that all of us in the United Kingdom will be losers if jobs and hence the communities in the remote parts of Scotland that depend on fishing are weakened and disappear. She will also be aware that the North sea suffers badly from industrial effluent from northern Europe and factory fishing from Denmark, which have as much of an effect on fish stocks as over-fishing. What can she and the Government do about those problems?

Helen Liddell: I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman about how serious the issue is, particularly for the fishing communities around the coast of Scotland. We are now fully engaged in discussions with the Commission and, indeed, our colleagues in the Scottish Executive. It is our intention to have a common fisheries policy that not only delivers value for money, protects fish stocks and secures a future for the industry, but takes into account environmental issues. This is a time for cool heads, and we should all work together to secure the livelihoods of fishermen and their families in Scotland and the United Kingdom.

Andrew Selous: Given that haddock stocks are at their highest level since 1971, why is Scotland contemplating the end of fishing for that fish? Does the Secretary of State agree that fishing will return to its long-term viable status only when the communities are able to manage the fish stocks on which their employment depends?

Helen Liddell: Again, I return to the issue of people doing their homework; Scotland is not contemplating the end of fishing. Indeed, Scotland is determined to fight for the continuation of fishing, but I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that haddock and whiting stocks are being caught in the trap of the depletion in cod stocks in the North sea and that the by-catch is the difficulty for us. We would welcome the hon. Gentleman's support in ensuring sustainability for the fishing communities around Scotland. These are serious issues, and they require serious consideration.

Calum MacDonald: Does the Secretary of State agree that there are several different kinds of fishing industry in Scotland, some of which are hitting very serious problems while others are very successful? In particular, the west coast fishing industry, which largely catches shellfish, has had one of its best years for two decades. Will she join me in commending those fishermen on the responsible way in which they have conducted their fishery and seek to ensure that the Commission's fishing policy fully takes into account the different needs of the various industries in Scotland?

Helen Liddell: I congratulate my hon. Friend on that question. Indeed, I congratulate the fishermen in his community and elsewhere on their work. The nephrops fishery is an interesting case because by-catches of cod from the nephrops stock was an issue. There has been some success in relation to that, but fishing communities throughout Scotland must bear in mind that we are in very difficult times, and we need to co-operate to find a way forward. As I said earlier, this is a time for very cool heads in a very serious situation.

Malcolm Savidge: Can my right hon. Friend assure us that the Government will sign up to an agreement in Europe only if they are convinced that it is based on accurate scientific evidence and provides a solution that will sustain fishing stocks and the long-term future of our fishing industry in both its elements—catching and processing?

Helen Liddell: I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. He and I were present during the fisheries debate last Thursday when the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), made that point. I understand that, as recently as this morning, representatives from fishing communities met scientists from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and I hope that that meeting was useful. There is no doubt that the science issue has to be taken into account seriously, but we also have to question in great detail the conclusions reached as a result of analysing the science. We have to take into account the measures that have been previously introduced to preserve cod stocks in the North sea in reaching our final conclusions.

Alex Salmond: I welcome what the Secretary of State has just said about taking into account the substantial reductions in fishing effort over the last year. When haddock stocks biomass figures are the highest that they have been in the North sea for 30 years, when saith is at its highest for 20 years, and when whiting is at its highest for 10 years—and even cod, which is at very low levels, is improving—why on earth are we talking about a management plan for next year that might involve the loss of thousands of jobs around the coastline of Scotland? What personal involvement has she had in securing those jobs and the livelihoods of thousands of people in the communities of Scotland?

Helen Liddell: The hon. Gentleman asks an important question, and I agree with him about the inequity of haddock and other stocks being caught in this trap. He asks about my personal involvement. I have taken a considerable interest in this matter, and yesterday I met the Scottish Minister for Environment and Rural Affairs who has responsibility for fisheries. I am going to Brussels this afternoon, and I hope to meet representatives of the UK permanent representation to get a handle from them on how the discussions are likely to go. Like him, however, I am determined to see a future for the Scottish fishing industry.

John Thurso: I am sure that the Secretary of State is well aware of the grave concern for the Scottish fishing fleet on both sides of the House. Given the considerable concern regarding the interpretation of the science that the Commission has produced, will she, in her meetings, impress on the Commission and her colleagues the real contribution that the Scottish fishing fleet made to reduce effort last year, particularly with regard to increasing mesh sizes and other measures?

Helen Liddell: I shall certainly make those points, and the hon. Gentleman does well to draw them to the attention of the House. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary pointed out on Thursday night, these are areas in which we have strength on our side in challenging the conclusions of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, and in taking on the position of the Fisheries Commissioner, who seems to think that closing down the fishing industry in Scotland would be a price worth paying. It is not a price worth paying for this Government.

Russell Brown: I hope that at the forthcoming European Fisheries Council my right hon. Friend will give an undertaking that the Government will argue strongly for maximum possible protection for Scotland's fishing industry. Does she agree, however, that it is vital that effective enforcement measures apply consistently across each and every member state?

Helen Liddell: That is an important point with which I agree. It is difficult to have unregulated fishing and excessive factory fishing as well as sustainable fishing stocks. Indeed, we signed up to the international plan of action in Rome in 1991, which is a good way forward. It is vital that we constantly take into account the whole issue of sustainability. However, some of the issues concerned with sustainability are difficult. We must engage across the House in a proper debate on these matters, along with those who know most about it, the fishing industry, so that we ensure the future of the industry, not just for those who are in the industry today, but for those in the industry in the future.

Jacqui Lait: As hon. Members have referred to nearly 44,000 jobs in Scotland in the fishing industry being at potential risk, will the right hon. Lady tell us who in her team is going to Brussels this afternoon, what subjects they plan to discuss and what outcomes she expects?

Helen Liddell: I am going to Brussels this afternoon. I have other engagements, but part of my visit is to give me an opportunity to talk to the UK permanent representation about the nature of the negotiations going on in relation to this matter. These are critical times, as the run-up to the Fisheries Council is, in many respects, even more important than the Fisheries Council itself. I know that the Scottish Fisheries Minister will be in Brussels at the end of this week, and we must work together across the House and with the Scottish Parliament to ensure that a balanced case is put, and that we have a sound and coherent argument that sustains the fishing industry for the future.

Jacqui Lait: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for that information, and I am glad that she is taking unilateral action on the fishing industry. From her website, nobody in the Scotland Office appears to be doing anything much. As the Prime Minister, last Wednesday, tacitly accepted the European Commission's questionable science, and condemned, in effect, the Scots fishing boats to tie up, can she tell us what action she is preparing to support the industry by the use of structural funds? What thought has she given to the long-term future of those communities, given that the funds will run out in 2006?

Helen Liddell: I get the impression that the hon. Lady is selling out the fishing industry already. We have a way to go in the negotiations and a coherent case will be significant. Last week, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister referred to the science. The science is important and we have to come to a mutually agreed decision about the robustness of the science, because the future and sustainability of the fishing industry are important. If the Government whom she supported had taken action in the 18 years that they were in power, we might not face these difficulties now.

Recycling

Anne Begg: What discussions she has had with the Scottish Executive about encouraging more recycling in Scotland.

Anne McGuire: My right hon. Friend and I have regular discussions with the Scottish Executive on a wide range of issues. The recycling of waste, however, is a devolved area of responsibility.

Anne Begg: My constituents are concerned about a proposal to build a very large incinerator in Aberdeen, South. If that proposal is turned down because it does not receive planning permission or if it turns out to be much smaller than planned, it will be crucial to lessen through recycling or waste minimisation the amount of waste that we produce. This Parliament has responsibility for incentives that promote waste minimisation, that encourage business to use recycled materials and that help to create markets for such materials. Will my hon. Friend hold discussions with the Treasury to help to ensure that it is gives as many incentives as it can to encourage recycling and to make sure that we have less waste to deal with?

Anne McGuire: I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he prepares his pre-Budget consultation, will have heard my hon. Friend's remarks.

Ian Davidson: Does my hon. Friend agree that not all recycling is to be applauded? Will she deplore the recycling of soiled, used and defeated candidates in first-past-the-post elections for the Scottish Parliament? As this is an issue for which—

Mr. Speaker: Order. That was a waste of the House's time.

Inward Investment

Eleanor Laing: When she last met the Scottish Executive to discuss inward investment in Scotland.

James Gray: When she last met the Scottish Executive to discuss inward investment in Scotland.

Anne McGuire: My right hon. Friend and I have regular meetings with the Scottish Executive on a range of matters affecting the Scottish economy, including inward investment.

Eleanor Laing: I thank the Minister for that reply. Is she aware that a recent report from Ernst and Young has shown that inward investment in Scotland has fallen by almost two thirds in the first half of this year? I find that extremely worrying, recognising, as I do, how important inward investment is to Scotland. Given the wealth of experience in business that the Secretary of State has had both personally and as a Minister in the Department of Trade and Industry, is it not frustrating that Labour and Liberal—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is enough. The Minister will answer the hon. Lady's point.

Anne McGuire: The hon. Lady may have failed to notice that we are living in a very difficult global market. However, I reassure her that the United Kingdom is second only to the United States as the most popular place for inward investment. Scotland still holds its place within the United Kingdom. Perhaps she will consider some of the good new stories on inward investment, such as those involving the French whisky firms that have relocated their businesses to Livingston, AEA Technology, Excell Biotech and Pentland Ferries.

James Gray: The Minister is bullish about the prospects for inward investment in Scotland, but how does she explain the fact that, in the first half of this year, only seven new projects were recorded compared with 18 in the previous six months? Will she comment on the fact that five of those projects came from the United States?

Anne McGuire: We have close relations with the United States, so I am not at all surprised that some of that inward investment has come from there. As I said in my answer to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing), we are living in a difficult market, but significant trends have shown that we have cause for optimism. We should stop talking the Scottish economy down and start talking it up.

Tom Clarke: Will my hon. Friend and her colleagues in government continue, as they have been doing, to focus on the importance of inward investment, particularly in the light of the economy that we inherited? Will she pay particular regard to the future of Gartcosh, which is crucial to my constituency and to the rest of Lanarkshire?

Anne McGuire: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on highlighting the importance of Gartcosh. We all agree that it is vital to the regeneration of Lanarkshire. However, I want to alert the House to the fact that, as we speak, 252 inward investment projects are safeguarding or creating 40,000 jobs in the Scottish economy.

Martin O'Neill: Does my hon. Friend agree that we live in a difficult recession-ridden international climate and that Britain's macro-economic stability enables us to continue to attract inward investment when other countries, trying a lot harder than they did, are unsuccessful? That is because of the great assets of our labour force, our flexible labour market and, as I said, the general macro-economic stability of Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

Anne McGuire: My hon. Friend has a wealth of experience in those matters and I can do nothing other than agree with him.

ADVOCATE-GENERAL

The Advocate-General was asked—

Human Rights

Ann McKechin: What assessment she has made of the change in the way in which the Human Rights Act 1998 is applied in Scotland since devolution.

Lynda Clark: There have been significant changes. I have noted that alleged breaches of the convention can now be raised much more quickly and effectively in domestic courts. In some areas of procedural uncertainty, I have attempted to obtain clarification of the law.

Ann McKechin: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for her reply. I agree about the success of the implementation of the Human Rights Act, especially in greatly speeding up the process of pursuing cases in the courts. What examples can she give of recent attempts to clarify the law in that regard?

Lynda Clark: My hon. Friend will appreciate that some of the matters are technical. There was a problem after the Human Rights Act came into force because some litigants thought that they no longer had to use the devolution minute procedure but could rely instead on the Act. I took a test point in the case of Mills which confirmed that the Scotland Act 1998 is the correct route to follow if a party litigant wants to allege that a Scottish Minister, including the Lord Advocate, is in breach of the convention. There have been other examples of that, too.

Devolution

Anne McIntosh: What recent devolutionary issues she has considered.

Lynda Clark: I consider all devolution issues intimated to me. Of those intimated recently, all have concerned the criminal sphere, with the majority relating to the right to a fair trial.

Anne McIntosh: May I seek the Advocate-General's advice on one devolution issue? If a Scottish airport seeks expansion, who will have the final decision—the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Scottish Executive or the Secretary of State for Transport in England?

Lynda Clark: No such devolution issue has been intimated to me. [Interruption.] I am afraid not. There is a procedure under the Scotland Act 1998. Such devolution issues are not raised in Parliament. On the general point, each matter has to be considered within its context. It would be necessary to consider the particular proposals, both the relevant reservations under the Scotland Act and the particular devolution aspects. That is why, for example, I have to consider legislative proposals within the context of the Scotland Act. We cannot answer such questions in broad terms; they have to be considered in the specific context.

Annabelle Ewing: What devolution issues have been raised since 23 October under the Scotland Act 1998.

Alistair Carmichael: What devolution issues she has considered since 22 October.

Lynda Clark: Since 22 October, 26 devolution issue cases have been intimated to me, all relating to the criminal law. A substantial number concerned undue delay in criminal proceedings, while the rest related variously to the right not to self-incriminate, to whether shameless indecency at common law is a sufficiently defined offence for the purposes of the convention, to reversal of burdens of proof and to the determination of the punishment part of life sentences.

Annabelle Ewing: I thank the Advocate-General for her answer. She will be aware that she has intervened in 24 devolution cases out of a total of 1,575 since the inception of her office. That is about 1 per cent. of cases. Will she clarify whether there is a formal ceiling that limits the number of times she can intervene in devolution cases?

Lynda Clark: There is no formal ceiling. Many devolution cases are intimated to me at the first level, in the lower courts, and I never have to deal with them again because they are resolved. Many of them, approximately 700, have dealt with questions of delay, and because they raised a number of difficult legal points, I took steps to tackle them in a recent test case in the Privy Council. It would be ludicrous to intervene in 700 cases, so I try to identify cases in which the law may, for various reasons, need clarification, or in which there are pressing reasons, for the UK, for me to intervene. It may be considered to be a mark of the success of the devolution settlement that I have had to intervene in so few cases.

Alistair Carmichael: Does the Advocate-General consider it appropriate in 2002 that the commissioners of the Northern Lighthouse Board should still be drawn from the Lord Advocate, the Solicitor-General and sheriff principals? Will she consider the human rights aspects of the matter and give the appropriate advice for reform to the Department for Transport?

Lynda Clark: On the face of it I am not sure that there are any human rights issues, but I am happy to listen to any that are brought to my attention. This is a devolved matter, and I am sure that the Lord Advocate—[Interruption.] Well, I shall look into the matter and write to the hon. Gentleman.

LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT

The Parliamentary Secretary was asked—

Personal Immunity

Vincent Cable: What the Lord Chancellor's policy is on the personal immunity of the Sovereign in relation to actions in court.

Rosie Winterton: The policy that the sovereign has personal immunity in relation to actions in court remains unchanged.

Vincent Cable: Does the Minister agree that the recent application of that principle of immunity has caused considerable embarrassment to the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the courts and, not least, the monarchy? Will she therefore contemplate reviewing those arrangements, particularly bearing in mind the comment made yesterday by David Pannick QC that one person's liberty as a defendant should not take second place to someone else's status?

Rosie Winterton: The hon. Gentleman clearly has strong views about the matter. However, on 4 November, at one of his regular press conferences, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in relation to the Paul Burrell case that he did not believe that the constitutional position should change.

Kali Mountford: Does not this case have wider implications for immunity in general terms and, in particular, for Crown immunity? Does my hon. Friend have a view on the implications for Crown immunity, and how can Members of the House have a say in what happens about that?

Rosie Winterton: Consideration has been given to the quite different issue of the state's immunity in legal proceedings. For example, a recent consultation paper, XRevitalising Health and Safety", contains proposals for removing or modifying that immunity. In the light of the responses to that document, an interdepartmental working group is considering the implications, and advice will be given to Ministers about Crown immunity.

William Cash: Has the Lord Chancellor formally inquired as to what law, procedure or judicial rule led the judge in the case of R v. Burrell to convene prosecuting counsel in private and exclude defence counsel, which is usually done only when a public interest immunity certificate is applied for? If not, why not, and will he do so?
	Will the Minister confirm to the House that what the Attorney-General wrote to me on 6 November is the case, namely:
	XNo minister was asked to give a PII certificate or sign one, nor was a draft certificate ever prepared, or any consideration given by anyone to preparing such a certificate to place before the judge"?

Rosie Winterton: The hon. Gentleman knows very well that he addressed those issues to the Attorney-General, who has replied to him. The Lord Chancellor played no part whatsoever in the Paul Burrell trial.

Magistrates

Hugh Robertson: If she will make a statement on the Government's plans for increasing the number of magistrates.

Yvette Cooper: The most recent figures show that there are 28,500 magistrates in England and Wales. Work is under way to assess what impact measures such as increased sentencing powers will have on the number of magistrates needed in future so that we can plan recruitment programmes accordingly.

Hugh Robertson: I should like to raise with the Minister the case of a constituent of mine, Mrs. Summers, who was removed from the Bench by the Lord Chancellor this summer. She has lived in this country for more than 30 years since her marriage, had been a magistrate for more than 10, but was removed this summer by the Lord Chancellor because she failed to meet the terms of the Act of Settlement 1701, which allows for magistrates who are United Kingdom nationals, Irish or members of a Commonwealth country. She is Dutch. The Lord Chancellor's Department wrote to me and promised to return her to the Bench as soon as possible. I have heard nothing further—what more is being done?

Yvette Cooper: I am not aware of the particular case that the hon. Gentleman raised, but he is right that a number of cases have been caught by the Act of Settlement and nationality requirements for magistrates. We have made it clear that we are keen for people who have been serving magistrates for a long time, often with great experience and having given a huge amount of time to their community and the justice system, to be returned to the Bench. We have been working on measures to support individuals to help them meet the requirements so that they can get back onto the Bench. We are also looking at legislative provisions in that area, and I shall write to the hon. Gentleman with a detailed account of progress.

David Taylor: If the Government expand the number of magistrates, as a member of the Magistrates' Association I believe that it is desirable to widen the sections of society from which appointments to the lay Bench are made. Will the Minister tell the House how the Government are tackling the chronic difficulty of making the Bench representative?

Yvette Cooper: My hon. Friend is right. An important principle in the justice system is that of being judged by one's peers. It is important that magistrates are drawn from the areas or constituencies on which they will judge. We are concerned to recruit more people who are in work, more people from ethnic minorities and younger people to the Bench. We have been working with Operation Black Vote, particularly on recruitment from ethnic minority communities, and we are looking to do more through a national recruitment strategy.

Douglas Hogg: If we are to have a large lay magistracy, which is desirable, is it not important that the courts are kept local? In that context, may I emphasise the importance of keeping the magistrates court at Sleaford?

Yvette Cooper: I have heard the right hon. and learned Gentleman's representations on that court. Local access to justice is certainly important, which is why we have supported it across the country. We are also looking at closer working between magistrates courts and the civil and family courts, because that can often support access in areas where individual courts may be under pressure. That is also why decisions are made locally about the use of court houses and resources.

Court Witnesses

Hugh Bayley: What research her Department has carried out into the reasons why some witnesses fail to testify in court.

Yvette Cooper: The Government have carried out considerable research on this issue, much of it led by the Home Office, although it is used across Departments involved in the criminal justice system. The Lord Chancellor's Department is currently looking at new research into why trials are ineffective and do not go ahead on the day, including the reasons why witnesses do not attend.

Hugh Bayley: York Women's Aid tells me that six of its clients in the past year have withdrawn witness statements that they have made to the police against men who use violence against them. The longer the wait between the man being charged and the case coming to court, the more likely a woman is to be harassed and intimidated into withdrawing her evidence. What are the Government going to do to bring domestic violence cases before the courts more speedily to avoid that problem, thus ensuring that women who have been subjected to violence get justice?

Yvette Cooper: My hon. Friend is right to point to problems of delay and intimidation for witnesses. Those are both reasons why witnesses often do not give evidence in the end, and cases can fall apart as a result. There are particular problems in cases of domestic violence, given the relationship between the person who has suffered the violence and the perpetrator, which can make matters more difficult. That is why we are considering not simply reducing unacceptable delays across the board, but measures relating specifically to domestic violence, and why the Government are working on proposals for a White Paper in due course.

David Heath: The Government are right to identify intimidation of and reprisals against witnesses as a serious matter. In the Government's preparations for legislation to deal with the problem, will the hon. Lady include research among local authorities and parliamentarians with experience of these matters? Can she say what the likely timetable is for the introduction of the victims and witnesses Bill, and whether the antisocial behaviour Bill will include procedural changes to free tenants and others who wish to lay information without threat of reprisal?

Yvette Cooper: As the hon. Gentleman is aware, the Criminal Justice Bill has already been published and includes improvements to support for witnesses. He is right to say that there is also a considerable amount of work going on in support of victims and witnesses across government and across the criminal justice system—for example, work in the courts includes equipment for those who are vulnerable and for intimidated witnesses to be able to give evidence through the Crown court. We are keen to include any representations from hon. Members across the House, and if the hon. Gentleman has particular views or examples, it would be helpful if he passed them to us and also to the Home Office.

David Kidney: May I invite my hon. Friend to extend the current research that she mentioned to include an examination of a scheme at Stafford, where there is a support scheme for witnesses and antisocial behaviour cases? I have seen for myself that witnesses feel supported, they feel that they are mutually backing each other up, they obtain information about the cases, and they go to court believing that what they are doing is right and is valued. Will my hon. Friend consider whether such a scheme could be replicated across the country, with the beneficial effect of more witnesses turning up to give evidence?

Yvette Cooper: I certainly would be interested to see the example that my hon. Friend described. He may be aware that the Crown Prosecution Service estimates that 30,000 cases each year do not go ahead because victims or witnesses are not prepared to give evidence, so we would be interested in any measures that are helping to improve the position. At present, all sorts of support for victims and witnesses is provided by volunteers across the country, so anything that allows communities to provide support and witnesses to provide support for each other would be extremely interesting to look at.

Solicitors

David Cameron: How many complaints she has received about the operation of the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors in the past year; and if she will make a statement.

Rosie Winterton: The responsibility for handling complaints about the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors falls to the Office of the Legal Services Ombudsman. Information about specific numbers of referrals to the OLSO about the OSS is available in the ombudsman's most recent report, a copy of which is in the Library. However, concerns about the operation of the OSS have been raised in correspondence to the Lord Chancellor's Department, and the Lord Chancellor has warned that unless swift and substantive improvements are made, he will not hesitate to implement his reserve powers and establish a legal services complaints commissioner.

David Cameron: What would the Minister say to my constituent, Mr. Fraser of Chipping Norton, who wrote to me stating:
	XSelf-regulation only seemed to work when solicitors did not tout for business and there were fewer solicitors."
	Now that the number of complaints is so large, as the Minister said in her answer, the backlog is so significant, and the level of dissatisfaction is getting so high, can she set a deadline for when she will make a decision about whether or nor the current system is working?

Rosie Winterton: With regard to self-regulation, the Government have always started from the position that the legal profession should be independent and self-regulating. Solicitors should be able to represent their clients freely and without fear, potentially against the Government, if necessary. It is important that we accept that as the ideal position. However, we are keenly aware of the points that the hon. Gentleman makes about complaints, particularly about the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors. As I said, the Lord Chancellor would prefer the office to get itself in good working order. However, if that does not happen, he has taken reserve powers that will be reviewed frequently to ensure that improvements are being made. If not, other action will be taken.

Legislative Scrutiny

Graham Allen: What her policy is on scrutiny of Bills sponsored by his Department.

Yvette Cooper: The Queen's Speech highlighted the importance that the Government place on pre-legislative scrutiny of Bills by Parliament. We are keen to see much greater use of pre-legislative scrutiny of Bills and legislation introduced by the Lord Chancellor's Department in future.

Graham Allen: I congratulate my hon. Friend and the Government on their commitment in the Queen's Speech to ensuring more pre-legislative scrutiny, which will allow this place and the public outside to contribute to Bills. If her Department were to introduce a Bill on, say, courts or mental incapacity, would she look favourably on pre-legislative scrutiny in those areas? Looking further ahead, as Departments are now preparing Bills for next year's legislative programme, will she alert her Department—and I hope, with the President of the Council present, all other Departments in Whitehall—to ensure that time is now being built in for pre-legislative scrutiny, so that all Bills can be properly scrutnised by this House and the public?

Yvette Cooper: The points that my hon. Friend makes are extremely important. We will introduce a Bill on courts reform, as set out in the Queen's Speech. That will need to move relatively quickly into the House for discussion, so I understand that it will not be possible to conduct pre-legislative scrutiny on that Bill. However, we are looking to future areas of legislation, including issues relating to mental incapacity, which he mentioned. I certainly believe that such legislation would benefit from the scrutiny afforded by prior publication in draft, although he will understand that I can give no commitment about the timing of publication, nor can I give any commitment about parliamentary scrutiny. He will understand that as well as timing decisions taken by business managers, the final decision must rest with parliamentary Committees. We are keen for them to take the decision to conduct more pre-legislative scrutiny when the opportunity arises.

PRIVY COUNCIL

The President of the Council was asked—

House of Lords Reform

Julian Lewis: To ask the President of the Council if he will make a statement on proposals for further reform of the House of Lords.

Tony Wright: What progress has been made with his preparation for reform of the House of Lords.

Robin Cook: The Queen's Speech stated that the Government look forward to considering the interim report from the Joint Committee on options for the composition of the House of Lords. I understand that the Joint Committee may reach a view on its interim report before Christmas. The Government have already given a commitment to facilitate the House reaching a decision on the options on a free vote.

Julian Lewis: Will the President resist the temptation to shelter entirely behind the Joint Committee schedule and now give a firm pledge to this House that House of Lords reform will be implemented by the end of this Parliament?

Robin Cook: The hon. Gentleman waves temptation in front of me. I am happy to say that I am very able to resist the temptation to shelter behind the Joint Committee. I have said before and am happy to say again that I would like us to take forward House of Lords reform in this Parliament. I would like it to be enforced by the time we reach the end of this Parliament, but whether I can arrive there depends not only on me, but on 659 Members of Parliament, how we vote and whether there is a centre of gravity for reform. I would be very concerned if we fell into the same trap into which the House has fallen on previous occasions, when the inability among those who wanted reform to agree on it left the field to those who were opposed to any reform. We must not fall into that trap this time around.

Tony Wright: When the House discussed this matter six months ago, on 13 May, my right hon. Friend said:
	XA vote before the summer recess is certainly possible if the Joint Committee gets down to work quickly, and presents us with the options in good time. It is difficult to see what new matter needs to be examined, and I hope that the Joint Committee will co-operate with us in making that speed."—[Official Report, 13 May 2002; Vol. 388, c. 528.]
	We are now approaching the Christmas recess. I understand that when the Joint Committee next meets, it will be five weeks since it last met, and that three meetings have been cancelled. Does that not suggest that the speech for which he calls has not been forthcoming?

Robin Cook: I took the precaution of checking what I said before I came into the Chamber. I added that the summer recess was a tough deadline. It is important that I do not get pushed into the position of speaking on behalf of the Joint Committee and defending its timetable or decisions, which are matters for its members. I welcome the fact that the Chairman said that he intends to report by the winter solstice, and I am grateful to those who pointed out that that takes place on 21 December. That is compatible with being before Christmas.

Paul Tyler: Given the hilarity with which the Government's White Paper recommendation for electing only a fifth was received, will the Leader of the House give a firm commitment that Labour Back Benchers are under no obligation, and not even encouraged, to support the Government's proposal?

Robin Cook: I assure the hon. Gentleman that Labour Members are under no obligation to support it. I do not imagine that it would make much difference if they were under such an obligation. There will be a genuine free vote on the options. It is important that we emerge from the process of division with a centre of gravity around one favoured option to create the momentum to take it forward.

Chris Bryant: In his extensive research into comparing international second Chambers, has my right hon. Friend come across any other second Chamber that gives religious leaders ex-officio positions and the right to vote on legislation? Is not it time to join the rest of the world and get rid of the bishops from the House of Lords?

Robin Cook: I do not pretend to be an expert student of comparative second Chambers around the world, and I cannot therefore give my hon. Friend a blunt, frank answer. However, the future of bishops in the second Chamber is contentious and delicate and reflects views in the Church of England and elsewhere.
	The royal commission suggested that a reduced number of bishops should sit in the second Chamber. We must wait and see the Joint Committee's view on the matter.

Eric Forth: Building on the helpful reply that the Leader of the House gave to my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), does he perceive no genuine obstacle to resolving Lords reform in this House by next summer, and to resolving it legislatively by the end of the Parliament at the latest? Will he assure us that the Government will use their best endeavours to ensure that the matter progresses in an orderly fashion, and that he will work as closely as ever with the Lord Chancellor to make sure that the other place acts in the same way?

Robin Cook: I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Government will use their best endeavours to reach a conclusion on the matter. However, it is going a bit far to claim on the basis of my earlier reply that I perceive no obstacles. With only a moment's notice, I could produce 55 different obstacles that we might encounter. However, the House has to find a centre of gravity around a favoured method of reform. That is the prime issue. I hope that the process on which we have embarked through a Joint Committee and a free vote will enable us to reach that outcome.
	We have rightly put Parliament in the driving seat to consider an issue of parliamentary reform. I hope that Parliament can rise to the occasion and establish an agreed method of achieving reform. If we can do that, I anticipate effecting it in the course of the Parliament.

Statutory Instruments

Norman Baker: If he will ask the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons to consider whether it would be appropriate to allow statutory instruments to be amendable.

Ben Bradshaw: The Procedure Committee has already considered the amendability of statutory instruments and recommended against it. It is therefore unlikely that this matter would be re-examined by the Modernisation Committee, which co-ordinates its work programme closely with the Procedure Committee.

Norman Baker: That is a disappointing reply, although I understand why the Parliamentary Secretary made it. The following position can often arise: a member of a statutory instrument Committee tables an amendment that garners all-party support in Committee; the Minister has to choose between passing the SI unamended, against the Committee's wishes, or asking the hon. Member to withdraw it. The hon. Member refuses to do that. Is not that simply bad government?

Ben Bradshaw: I do not agree. Accepting amendability would negate the point of SIs. I shall quote briefly from the Procedure Committee's report, which states:
	XPermitting the amendment . . . would involve excessive complications. It would . . . overturn many decades of practice . . . and . . . frustrate the very purpose of which delegated powers were given."

Douglas Hogg: If we are not to have amendable secondary legislation, could many more statutory instruments be debated in draft?

Ben Bradshaw: I am told by my right hon. Friend that that would be very difficult, but, if the right hon. and learned Gentleman will allow me, I will write to him with a more expansive reply.

Computers

Michael Jack: If he will recommend to the Select Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons that it review the way hon. Members use laptop computers to assist them in carrying out their role of legislative scrutiny.

Ben Bradshaw: My right hon. Friend will bring the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion to the attention of the Modernisation Committee. He accepts that information and communications technology has great potential for assisting the House in its work, and he is examining ways in which new technologies can be used to maximise Members' effectiveness.

Michael Jack: I thank the Minister most sincerely for his positive response to my question, particularly at a time when the Liaison Committee has granted an experiment in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee for the use of laptop equipment. I would be most grateful if he could keep the House informed as to the timetable of the recommendation that he has made.

Ben Bradshaw: I would be very happy to do that, and I note the right hon. Gentleman's welcome for the advance made by the Liaison Committee in relation to the Select Committee to which he referred. I agree with him, to a certain extent; at a time when many Members have done away with paper altogether and use palm-tops, for example, for note taking, the compiling of contact addresses and so forth, the whole House will want to move in the same direction as he does, in the end.

Kevin Brennan: Is not the continuing insistence on our not using laptop computers in Committee as ludicrous as it would be if we were still required to use quill pens? The rule is often breached by Members sending text messages and using palm-top computers surreptitiously. Does it not make a mockery of the system to allow that to continue? Will the Minister move quickly on this issue?

Ben Bradshaw: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is perfectly possible physically to remove oneself from a Committee to make a telephone call or to pass notes to and fro. It is important, however, that we take the Chairmen's Panel with us on this matter.

Draft Legislation

Helen Jackson: What steps he is taking to develop improved scrutiny of draft legislation.

Robin Cook: The Queen's Speech for the first time highlighted the importance that the Government place on the pre-legislative scrutiny of Bills by Parliament. In due course, I would hope that most bills would be published in draft. For pre-legislative scrutiny to be a success, it will be necessary for departmental Select Committees to recognise it as part of their core tasks.

Helen Jackson: Is it not the case that, this week, we shall give a Second Reading to three Bills that have not, to my knowledge, been considered in draft? In particular, is not the Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc.) Bill causing considerable difficulties for local authorities around the country that feel that there has not been enough consultation on aspects of the legislation? Is not this an example of how draft legislation might have been extremely beneficial both to local authorities and to the Government in pursuing that programme?

Robin Cook: In fairness to the Government, I should say that the matters that we are discussing this week have been around for some time. For instance, the Bill that we shall discuss today on the regional assemblies flows from a White Paper that has been extensively discussed. I do not disagree with my hon. Friend; of course it helps with the final text of a Bill if it has been through pre-legislative scrutiny. That is why we want to see more Bills published in draft. In practice, though, that means that these Bills would have needed to be published in draft in the last Session. What we must now focus on is how many Bills we can publish in draft in anticipation of the next Session.

HOUSE OF COMMONS COMMISSION

The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, representing the House of Commons Commission, was asked—

Commons Chamber (Tourists)

David Kidney: What assessment the Commission has made of the costs of making the Commons Chamber accessible to tour groups when the House is sitting.

Archy Kirkwood: The trial period will begin when the House returns in January and will end at the Easter recess. Tour groups will be able to view the Chamber from the area at the back of the Strangers Gallery. Glazing will be installed in the apertures behind the seats in the Gallery to provide soundproofing, and additional audio speakers will be installed in the viewing area. Full details of the cost of this work are not yet available, but it is not expected to be large and will be found from existing budgets.

David Kidney: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his answer, which has obviously caused some interest around the Chamber. Will he accept that when we move to the new sitting hours in January, there will be reduced opportunities for visitors to visit the Chamber when it is empty? Does he share my sense of urgency that we should have a permanent arrangement as soon as possible for visits to take place while we are sitting, as he has just described?

Archy Kirkwood: The hon. Gentleman's interest in that subject as a member of the Modernisation Committee is well known and noted. This is an experiment, and I hope that Members feed back their experience of that temporary arrangement between January and Easter. Once we have the benefit of that behind us, we shall look forward—in the not too distant future, I hope—to permanent arrangements being made.

PRIVY COUNCIL

The President of the Council was asked—

Pre-legislative Scrutiny

Graham Allen: To ask the President of the Council if he will bring forward a schedule for pre-legislative scrutiny online for all Bills before the next Queen's Speech.

Ben Bradshaw: Whether to conduct pre-legislative scrutiny online is a matter for decision by the Committee concerned, although we hope that it might become the usual practice, as circumstances allow.

Graham Allen: Obviously, there are difficulties with giving all Bills pre-legislative scrutiny as the programme has been agreed, but there should be no such excuse for next year. Departments are considering Bills now for next year's programme. Will my hon. Friend ensure that the wage bill for Members of Parliament does not go up more than 4 per cent. before that essential modernisation takes place?

Ben Bradshaw: As my hon. Friend is aware, the wages of Members of Parliament are subject to independent review by the Senior Salaries Review Body, but we certainly take on board his point about pre-legislative scrutiny online. I have had meetings with him and our correspondence is continuing. We are trying to do what we can to expedite the process.

Fire Dispute

John Prescott: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the fire service dispute. As you know, I was available to give a statement to the House yesterday in line with my undertaking to keep the House informed. [Laughter.] I would hope that the House always feels that Front Benchers should make themselves accountable. In the event—[Interruption.] I bowed to the wishes of Mr. Speaker, as we all must. In the event, the Prime Minister made a statement in response to an urgent question from the Leader of the Opposition, so I will not repeat what he said.
	The Government have always made it clear that we want a modern, efficient and effective fire service. We want a fair deal for the firefighters, a fair deal for other public service employees and a fair deal for the public they serve. I am sure that the House will want to join me in thanking the armed forces, the police and other emergency services for the thoroughly professional job that they have done so far. Anyone looking at the pictures in some of our papers today of Wren Amy Stubbs rescuing a young child can see the professionalism and care that they are applying to their role, and I am sure the House would want me to thank them for it.
	Since Friday morning, the armed forces have attended more than 5,000 incidents. Their remit is to give priority to category A life-threatening incidents. In fact, they are all coping well and the calls that they have attended have been from the less dangerous category C. There has been no reported instance of property being left to burn.
	I also want to take the opportunity to thank the retained firefighters for their continuing work and to acknowledge that striking firefighters have left their own picket lines to deal with some emergency incidents, as they did in the case of the rescue by Amy Stubbs. I am sure the whole House will want to join me in thanking the public for their extra vigilance. However, although hoax calls have fallen from 11 per cent. on the first day of the first strike to 7 per cent. yesterday, that 7 per cent. is still too high.
	Following the breakdown of negotiations on Friday morning, I held a discussion with Jeremy Beecham on the way forward. Sir Jeremy is the chairman of the Local Government Association, but he is not a member of the negotiating team. He agreed with me, and has made it public, that the document negotiated between the employers and the employees on Thursday night and Friday morning abandoned the essential link between pay and modernisation that has been the touchstone of the Government's approach to the dispute.
	I met Sir Jeremy again last night. He was working to put together a new group on the employers' side, which will oversee the process of modernisation of the fire service, drawing on the work of the Bain review. [Interruption.] That involves members of each political party. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and the Regions will meet the employers tomorrow to discuss that further.
	Officials from my Department met the employers yesterday and they are meeting officials again today to work on the costs and benefits of the modernisation proposals. We will continue to work with the employers to help them to come to a clear view about the process of modernisation and the costs of any pay deal for the firefighters.
	There has been a great deal of speculation about how this fire strike could be brought to an end. It is very important to bear certain absolutely clear principles in mind. First, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said yesterday, this Government cannot be asked to find additional money outside the agreed Government spending limits. To do so would risk fundamental and lasting damage to the economy. An inflationary pay rise for the firefighters would lead to inflationary pay rises elsewhere in the public sector, and that in turn would lead to job losses, inflation and mortgage rises. That, I think, is common ground—or it was until yesterday—between the Government and Opposition Members.
	Secondly, any pay rise in addition to the 4 per cent. already on the table must be paid for by modernisation. That is the clear message that I have given in every meeting I have held with the employers and the FBU since the early summer. It is the same message that has been repeated by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and members of the Government ever since this dispute started. It is the reason why the Government set up the independent Bain review immediately after negotiations with the FBU and employers broke down in early September. It is also the reason why we asked Sir George Bain to bring forward his position paper on pay, which was published on 11 November.
	Following the Prime Minister's press conference and Commons statement yesterday, a real debate has begun in the papers about the issues involved. The FBU found itself having to justify its opposition to the type of changes that other public services have faced up to and which, indeed, have been carried out by some individual fire brigades. The FBU even claimed that it was willing to discuss modernisation all along, so why did it boycott the independent Bain review in the first place?
	The debate on modernisation is properly under way, and to help that debate I have today placed in the Library of the House a copy of a principles paper submitted by the Government to the Bain review. The Government's evidence sets out a clear vision for the future of the fire service and the principles that we believe should form the foundations for modernisation. The fire service is a front-line service whose effective functioning is essential to the quality of life in this country. The Government's evidence states that the fire service is well regarded by the public and is effective in many aspects of its performance, but is in need of change and reform. It is a service that could make much better use of its existing resources; that has to consider new ways of working; that needs to forge better partnerships; and that needs to attract a more diverse work force that better reflects the community it serves.
	The Government's principles paper sets out our general approach to public sector pay. It states our determination to maintain economic stability and meet our 2.5 per cent. inflation target. It emphasises the need to avoid unnecessarily high pay increases that divert money intended to improve public services, and it stresses the need to link pay to performance and reform, rather than to tenure and time served. The Government's evidence also sets out the five main drivers for change in the fire service, which are: first, a better understanding of the management of risk and the importance of prevention; secondly, the need to reduce the number of fires that occur and the deaths, injuries, and economic and social costs that they cause; thirdly, the fire services' contribution to community safety and action on social exclusion; fourthly, the importance of partnership in the delivery of best value; and lastly, the broadening range of the fire service's work in response to emergencies other than fire, including the new threats posed by terrorism.
	The position paper published by the Bain review on 11 November set out the considerations on pay and conditions that were needed to deliver this vision of a modernised fire service. His final, fuller report will be published in three weeks' time. The position paper set out a vision for a single, more broadly based and modernised service with multiple roles offering a wider range of services and expertise. It proposed a reward structure in which individuals would be valued for the contribution they made. It encouraged a more diverse work force with a wider range of career paths, responsibilities and skills, and made it clear that pay and modernisation had to go hand in hand and be consistent with the Government's public sector pay policy. The position paper recommended an increase in the pay bill of up to 11 per cent. over two years, subject to necessary and long-overdue modernisation.
	As I told the House on 14 November, the Government remain convinced that the Bain review is the key to resolving this dispute and providing the basis for a modern fire service equipped to deal with modern demands. Let me be clear: that remains the Government's position, as I have said in every statement to the House and in every discussion with the employers and the FBU. We should also be clear that Sir George Bain is proposing a menu of modernisation that is familiar to public sector workers in every other walk of life. What he means by modernisation with regard specifically to working conditions is that full-time and part-time firefighters should man the same engine together; that there should be shift patterns better to match the daily ebb and flow in the number of fires that occur; that overtime should be worked when it is sensible and necessary; that firefighters should be trained to carry out some essential life-saving paramedic functions that could save hundreds of lives; and that there should be joint control rooms, where the fire service and other emergency services can work together. The House should bear in mind the fact that some of those practices are already being carried out in a number of brigade areas up and down the country.
	Bain also set out a route map for achieving that vision. He proposed a four-strand approach to negotiations, under which discussions would begin on the whole package of reforms at the same time but would be completed according to different time scales. The first strand would be completed in four to eight weeks, the second in about six months and the third in about a year. That model involved a direct connection between staged payments and the implementation of modernisation. Sir George recommended that, in exchange, the firefighters should receive a 4 per cent. pay rise immediately and a 7 per cent. rise next November. Each rise would be linked to the implementation of modernisation. The fourth strand would depend on action to be taken in partnership with local authorities and central Government, and would take longer to complete.
	Sir George said that the question of a longer-term uprating mechanism should depend on the implementation of the reform package, and that he would return to that in his final report—which, as I have said, will be produced in about three weeks.
	As with any industrial dispute, there are lots of variables that can be combined in different ways to bring about a final agreement. Bain talks of 11 per cent.; the general secretary of the FBU confirmed today, at a press conference in the House of Commons, that the union's claim is for 40 per cent., and the same is being stated on picket lines up and down the country.
	The way forward is for the employers and the union to sit down and discuss how quickly the service can be modernised, how much can be saved, and when the firefighters will get their extra pay. What is absolutely clear, however, is that this fire service strike will have no influence on that process. The Government are not willing to abandon the clear principles that I have set out in the face of industrial action.
	I believe that the dispute will be settled only if people sit down at the table and try to reach an agreement. We must lift our eyes above the bile and recriminations of the current dispute, and focus on the long-term future of the fire service. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to introduce a radical change in order to provide a modern fire service for the 21st century. It is the interests of everyone—the public, the employers, the Government and the firefighters themselves—to achieve that vision.
	The Bain review has proposed a way forward. That is the basis for discussion. The issue of modernisation must be addressed, and we will therefore go on trying to bring employers and union together to have a proper discussion of pay and modernisation. The two must go hand in hand. The sooner the FBU faces that, the sooner the two sides can begin meaningful negotiation that can bring the dispute to an end. Once again, I urge the firefighters to get back to talking and stop walking.

David Davis: I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his statement. I agree that it is time for the firefighters to return to work and for all parties to return to the negotiating table. Let me also associate myself and the Opposition with the Deputy Prime Minister's remarks about the excellent work being done by the military personnel and, indeed, by the retained firefighters. Their hard work has ensured that this week's strike has not resulted in many more casualties. But it is not with their hard work that we have a problem; the problem is that they are needed at all. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday, this strike should not have happened in the first place. That it happened is due in part to the chaos and confusion that we have witnessed at the heart of Government over the past two weeks.
	The Deputy Prime Minister spoke at length about reorganisation. Some of that may be beneficial, but it will not work if it is not clear who is in charge. Yesterday the Prime Minister stepped in to try and introduce some clarity, but many questions remain unanswered. I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister can bring more clarity to some of those issues today.
	First, there is the issue of costs. On Friday, the Prime Minister's official spokesman described the draft agreement between the employers and the FBU as Xuncosted" and Xhalf-baked". The Deputy Prime Minister himself said, Xnobody knows the costs". Can he confirm that a member of his Department, a senior civil servant, costed the deal in the early hours of Friday morning at some £240 million? If so, why did the Prime Minister say yesterday that the cost was nearer £500 million? Can the Deputy Prime Minister clear up that confusion and tell us which figure he believes: £240 million or £500 million?
	This morning, the Prime Minister's official spokesman refused to rule out the possibility of job losses in the fire service. Given that employment-related costs make up more than 80 per cent. of the fire service's expenditure, it seems that they are extremely likely. Can the Deputy Prime Minister say whether he anticipates job losses? If the Prime Minister's figure of £500 million is correct, that will equate to no fewer than 15,000 job losses. Does the Deputy Prime Minister see those coming from a simple reduction in manpower or from the closure of fire stations? Most important, can he guarantee that there will be no worsening of cover or response times as a result of cost savings?
	Yesterday, the Prime Minister said particularly clearly that there would be no central Government funding for anything over 4 per cent. However, the employers appear to be anticipating some form of transitional funding from the Government, and the Bain inquiry implied transitional funding of some £41 million. Can the Deputy Prime Minister finally put that issue to rest and tell us what the true position is? Do the Prime Minister's comments mean that there will be no transitional funding and does that represent a change of policy from the Deputy Prime Minister's original position?
	The strike seems, sadly, set to go on for weeks or even months. Accordingly, the threat to public safety is even greater than we feared. What is the position on the safer red fire engines now? Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that they are available to the military if they ask for them. However, do the Government have control of all the 100-plus engines that they talked of last week, and are they being deployed?
	Is the experience of the military in Northumberland typical? I have here a copy of an article from Newcastle's The Journal today, which says that they were given modern appliances on Saturday, the decision was reversed on Sunday and reversed again on Monday night. Is the indecision and chaos that have plagued the dispute from the beginning still endangering the lives of the public?
	There is growing evidence that the threat of strike action is beginning to spread through the public sector. Even today, teachers and council workers in London are on strike. On Thursday, the RMT will send out ballot papers calling for strike action on the London underground, using the pretence of safety concerns. The Prime Minister sought to avoid that question yesterday, but should not the Government make clear before union members cast their votes what the legal consequences are? Will the Deputy Prime Minister make it clear that secondary action or the threat of secondary action is unlawful and that the Government will give their full support to anyone who takes legal action against any trade union engaging in it?
	Will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that the FBU has refused to sign up to TUC safety guidelines, which are, after all, designed to protect the public from unnecessary risk in the event of a strike? Is that not exactly the sort of circumstance that section 240 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Consolidation Act 1992 sought to deal with—a threat to the safety of the public? May I ask him again the question that he and the Prime Minister have avoided: will he go back to the Attorney-General and ask him to consider using that legislation to stop the strike action going on until Christmas?
	I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister can provide clear and concise answers to those important questions and clear up some of the chaos that we have witnessed in the past few days and weeks. The strike has already gone on too long. It is time for all parties to return to the negotiating table and to find a settlement. The strike should never have been allowed to happen, and many in this country will find it sad that, as the strike goes on and with public safety increasingly at risk, the only person who appears to be sleeping easily in his bed is the Deputy Prime Minister himself.

John Prescott: That was a typical cheap contribution from the right hon. Gentleman. The Opposition should reflect on the fact that every day of this dispute causes a threat to our citizens and everything should be done to try—[Interruption.] I will reply, but it is important to create an atmosphere in which we can have a settlement and not inflame the dispute, which is what the Conservative Administration always did. It is a bit cheap for the Conservatives to talk about how many days have been lost in the dispute, when we recall the millions of days lost in disputes under their leadership, quite apart from the millions of days lost through unemployment.
	Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that I have to direct the Attorney-General? [Interruption.] I thought that he said that the Government should tell the Attorney-General that we do not want the strike. He should ask his own legal affairs spokesman. I am asked by the Attorney-General whether any action is taking place and what the state of the negotiations is, and I properly tell him that it is for him to make a judgment on the public interest and the safety of the community. I leave that judgment to him and it is not our job to direct him on such matters. If—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Let the Deputy Prime Minister answer.

John Prescott: On the question about whether the TUC has an agreement on the 1978 agreement, that is a matter for the TUC. It was a matter for me to seek to find an agreement, which I failed to do on the first occasion, on exceptional situations such as a train crash or an explosion on our transport system. We have an agreement, signed up to by the union and the authorities involved, to make the men and machines available when such problems arise, dealing with what is known as the gold command, with the fire people controlling the fire equipment and the police controlling theirs. That is the normal structure under such circumstances, and I would have thought that the right hon. Gentleman would welcome the fact that we have an agreement to that effect, willingly entered into by the Fire Brigades Union, rather than shaking his head at it.
	I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments about the emergency services, and I know that the whole House will agree.
	When the estimates were made of the cost of £400 million or £500 million, that was a judgment on the total cost of the deal over three years. The Chancellor was talking about the public expenditure over the whole three-year period. Before considering how much could be paid for through modernisation and whether there would be any transitional payments, we would first have to agree to some modernisation proposals. Without such an agreement, we cannot make a proper judgment of what costs would be involved.
	The George Bain judgment is that 11 per cent. could be paid in two years if the firefighters are prepared to modernise in the way that I have suggested here and the way that he set out in his report. He did not say 16 per cent., he said 11 per cent. The union and the employers were discussing 16 per cent., but we did not endorse any of their three agreements and made it clear that any deal had to be financed by modernisation. It was not a matter of how much modernisation—the union made it clear that it was not prepared to engage with any modernisation. In those circumstances, all three deals that were being discussed were unacceptable. The first deal had the details of how much modernisation there should be, but that was taken out of the next two documents. We did not endorse any of them. Bain recommended, and the employers originally agreed, that there should be staged payments along with staged implementation. That is where the judgments have to be made.
	As the Prime Minister said, 100 red fire engines are available to the command centres if they want them, along with the 27 or 30 that are currently being used. The right hon. Gentleman referred to a problem in Newcastle, of which I am partly aware. The dispute was not about whether red goddesses should be used, but about where they should be sited. That was apparently what was under discussion by the authorities in the area—not doubts about the Prime Minister's statement. He said that if the machines were requested, we would be prepared to provide them. That commitment was met.
	As regards the RMT and its decision, I recommend that the right hon. Gentleman talk to his party's legal spokesman. Perhaps I should let him into this secret: secondary picketing and action are unlawful. There is no doubt about that. I need say no more than that.
	The Prime Minister made it clear that, during the first strike, 100 RMT members were involved in what some people called secondary action, although the RMT members said that it was due to safety fears. The company dealt with that and the number fell to one. I can tell the House that the number is now zero—there has been a 100 per cent. improvement.
	We all have to recognise that the matter has to be settled around a table, and we should do everything that we can—

Eric Pickles: What about job losses?

John Prescott: I shall deal with that—it is an important point. The FBU is proud of its record in keeping people employed in the industry. However, as 20 per cent. of the industry's work force will be taking early retirement over the next few years—for some of them it will be extremely early, because 70 per cent. of such retirements are for medical reasons—there would seem to be ample opportunity to discuss a more efficient utilisation of labour without redundancies or sackings.

Edward Davey: I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his statement and for continuing to keep the House informed. I join him in thanking our armed forces, our police and other emergency services for their work during the strike. He is right to point out that our thanks must go to the retained firefighters for their work. Not only do the Liberal Democrats wholly oppose the strike, but we also believe that the right hon. Gentleman was right on Friday morning to reject the request made by the employers and the FBU. That request was, in effect, for a blank cheque and for a deal that completely failed to guarantee real modernisation.
	I join the Conservative spokesman, however, in pointing out that the Deputy Prime Minister, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have been giving mixed messages, especially on funding, and that has not helped negotiations. Even now, it is still not clear whether there could be transitional funding to bridge any time gap until savings from reform come through. Yesterday, the Prime Minister distinctly failed to answer a question on that point from my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy). And the Deputy Prime Minister failed to answer that question when it was put by the Conservative spokesman today.
	Will the Deputy Prime Minister try to answer the question once and for all? Could transitional funding be found within, as he said in his statement, Xagreed Government spending limits"? Have not the right hon. Gentleman and his ministerial colleagues hinted on many occasions during the past few weeks that transitional funding could be available? Could such funding not break the deadlock?
	The Deputy Prime Minister has expressed frustration that he has not seen estimates of the savings that could be generated from reform. Will he explain why it is taking so long to obtain those figures? Why has his Department not produced them by now? Will he confirm that, a week ago, Ministers received a costings paper from the national joint council detailing estimated savings of £71 million from reform? If he can confirm that, will he tell the House whether Ministers accept that figure? Does he agree that the failure to draw up full and proper estimates of savings from modernisation is a major obstacle to finalising negotiations?
	When exactly did the Government submit their principles paper to the Bain review? As that independent review is even more important than ever if we are to achieve sensible reform, is there any possibility that publication of the final report will be brought forward?
	On an operational note, the Government say that they are putting public safety above all other considerations, so does the Deputy Prime Minister share my concern that in West Mercia it appears that the police and the Royal Air Force have been instructed to stop helping firefighters to put out fires? An e-mail from a senior fire office to his colleagues, headed XPolice advice on striking firefighters attending incidents", states:
	XOur police colleagues are understandably reluctant to release the advice they have received from their own headquarters, but the RAF have confirmed that they received similar advice a few days ago.
	The basis of the advice is that: The fire fighters are travelling in unmarked cars and may cause a risk to other road users as they chase incidents. They are not insured when working whilst on strike, raising questions over legal liability if they did something that resulted in death or injury. Such 'humanitarian' responses are being used in their propaganda war and undermine the military position, suggesting they"—
	the military—
	Xare unable to cope to cope without their expertise."
	The senior firefighter's e-mail continues:
	XYou will appreciate that this has potentially very significant implications in several respects. The last bullet point is particular disturbing, suggesting that the advice could be politically rather than operationally motivated."
	Will the Deputy Prime Minister tell the House whether he is aware of any such military or police advice? Will he guarantee to the House that Ministers and officials have had nothing to do with any such advice? Will he undertake to investigate that issue and make it clear now that the Government would not support any action by the police or RAF to stop firefighters from helping to save lives?

John Prescott: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his supportive comments and come immediately to the more serious points that he makes. May I make it clear that I am not aware of any such incident, which the House would deplore? If he is prepared to give me the information, I will look into it immediately and ensure that it is corrected. Although I do not know of such an incident, I assure him that my Department would not be involved in it. However, I shall look into it and report back to him as soon as I can.
	With regard to the mixed messages, we have been very clear that anything over and above 4 per cent. will have to be paid for by modernisation. Everyone has said that time and again, and that message is very clear. We were not involved in the negotiations, and hon. Members on both sides of the House will know that employers and employees always negotiate their own agreements. Everyone in government has recognised that, and we have not disputed it. All we have said is that there can be a settlement for three years and that there will be a certain amount of money for public pay. If the settlement is over and above that, it will have to be financed by modernisation. That is a clear position, and it is probably one that the Opposition might have pursued in government, but that will not be tested for an awfully long time.
	We are making all those matters clear, and whether people can change, whether anything can be done about the savings and what will be the total costs are all issues that concern us. Let me deal with just one question that I inquired about. When I looked at one of the proposals to bring retained fireworkers' pay up to that of full-time fireworkers—especially with regard to part-timers as well—I asked why is there a difference in pay? One of the union's demands is to bring pay up to the same level. I asked whether we could have the figures—I thought that calculating the money involved seemed simple enough—but then discovered that people have to renegotiate all the allowances that are included. It is not easy to go away and find out the figures immediately.
	I agree that it is risking a terrible situation when negotiations go on without that basic information. I understand that the same employers involved in negotiations with local authorities receive regular information, but if such negotiations have not gone on with the fire service for 25 years, people get into habits and do not look at the cost savings that are involved. I agree that that should have been done, and that is why we have set up a team to make sure that we have accurate information, instead of ideas just being put down on paper and people asking me to sign a blank cheque. That is totally unacceptable, and it is why the team has been put together to find out accurate information.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about our paper on principles. We sent the paper to the Bain inquiry on 18 October, but we thought that it would be useful to publish it today—it had not been published by the Bain inquiry—to show what the Government's attitude to modernisation and pay was on 18 October. The principles are clearly set out in that paper.

Kate Hoey: Does the Deputy Prime Minister understand that all the firefighters in the three fire stations in my constituency are prepared to talk sensibly about some of the ways of working, but they are not prepared—nor am I—to see modernisation used as a form of cutback? In particular, will he assure the House that the fire service in London will not have fewer firemen and women on duty at night, given that Londoners—certainly the people in my constituency—think that that is the most dangerous time, when we need more firemen and women, not fewer?

John Prescott: It is clear that one needs to have a proper risk assessment of where the danger is; it varies from station to station and, indeed, as the general secretary of the FBU has said, from time to time. He said that he was in a very busy station, but some stations receive fewer calls, so risk assessment is quite important. Judgments can be made about whether there should be full teams for the three eight-hour watches, but there have been fewer police on duty at night than during the day for a long time. I understand the arguments about that, but my point is why not sit down and negotiate?
	How can my hon. Friend possibly know whether the number of firefighters will be reduced—the charge that she makes—without the required analysis and the discussions? It is easy to pick up a leaflet and repeat what might be said outside, but I have to do something much more informed than that, and the Bain inquiry was about telling us facts, rather than taking things off a leaflet.

Richard Ottaway: Does the Deputy Prime Minister accept that it is the number of closed underground stations rather than the number of drivers at work that is the issue? Is he aware that the channel tunnel, when faced with closure, installed its own safety equipment to a standard that was acceptable to the Health and Safety Executive in Kent? As a result, the channel tunnel is open. Why cannot the same be done on the London underground to free the streets of London of the chaos that is becoming a daily occurrence?

John Prescott: We must accept that the London underground is working very well—[Interruption.] It has not closed down. Despite the statements made at the time—[Interruption.] Yes, it is working well. Let us look at how many trains are running and how many drivers are turning up for work. As I have already said, 100 drivers did not turn up during the previous strike, but that number went down to one yesterday, and it is now none. That should be welcomed. As for the closed stations, I understand the difficulties behind the Health and Safety Executive's judgment, which we must accept. Perhaps those factors can be taken into account in the modernisation of the underground.

Ronnie Campbell: It is well known that the firemen have support around the country, and that people would like the dispute settled as lives are in danger, and that is what the Fire Brigades Union is all about—trying to save lives. Would not it be wise of my right hon. Friend to get a room in his office or somewhere else, put the negotiating team in there, and only feed them beer and sandwiches until he gets a result?

John Prescott: It is more a case of wine and canapés at the moment. Anyway, I do not think that that is necessary. On the occasions when I have met the general secretary of the FBU, he wants neither a sandwich nor a beer nor tea. We have had meetings and discussions, however, and safety considerations are as important to him as to the ordinary fire workers on picket lines, who, when they see an incident, come off their picket lines and go to save lives. Every one of us must therefore make every kind of effort to get back round the negotiating table to get a good fire service working for us and for the safety of the community.

Michael Fallon: Given the Deputy Prime Minister's assurance that any settlement will be fully financed by modernisation, will he provide a further categorical assurance that no part of any settlement above 4 per cent. will fall to council tax payers to fund?

John Prescott: I have made it precisely clear that anything over and above 4 per cent. will have to be paid for by modernisation. The only reference to council tax came not from the Government but from the leader of the Fire Brigades Union, who suggested putting 20p on council tax. What I found hard was that it seemed that the council tax payer could be asked to pay to overcome this difficulty, and the taxpayer could be asked to pay for it, but the Fire Brigades Union would make no changes. It should make changes.

David Borrow: Firefighters in my constituency still believe that they are worth £30,000 a year, and they believe that the Fire Brigades Union has evidence to justify that. They do not believe the Bain inquiry because of the fatal flaw in that the FBU did not submit any evidence to it. If the FBU asks the Deputy Prime Minister to set up an inquiry again, in which the FBU would participate, to make a judgment on the extent to which, since 1978, changes in the labour market and the fire service would justify a pay increase, would he be prepared to set up such an inquiry? At the moment, the firefighters still believe—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Perhaps this is an opportunity to say that questions must be brief.

John Prescott: Let me make it clear that there is no need for another inquiry. I have said very clearly to the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union that if he has evidence to give, even at this stage, he should give it. I cannot accept criticism in relation to the worth of a firefighter if evidence is not given to the inquiry that is set up. That is the situation. I do not know all the facts, and it is clear that the employers do not know all of them either, so it is traditional in such circumstances, under all Governments in this country, to set up an independent inquiry as a fair way of obtaining the facts.
	As for the judgment on whether a firefighter is worth £30,000, I refer to the one difference about firefighters with which everyone agrees. They walk into danger when most of us walk away from it. That is a special consideration. However, on the point about whether they are worth £30,000, I ask the House to consider what would happen if nurses walked out and deaths in wards resulted from their lack of attendance. We would be asking exactly the same question. We must try to find fairness within the balance that we have set out. I have done that today and the Bain inquiry has done that. Let us sit down and talk and produce whatever evidence one would like to give. However, we must make a decision at the end of the day that is fair to the firefighters, fair to other public sector workers and fair to the economy in its consequences.

Bill Wiggin: I am reminded more and more that the Deputy Prime Minister is like Nero, only faffing rather than fiddling. Bearing in mind that soldiers are paid half what the FBU is asking for, is it not time that the right hon. Gentleman did the walking instead of the talking and resigned?

John Prescott: Clearly, that was not a serious question.

Russell Brown: I very much admire the work that my right hon. Friend has undertaken in this dispute. I sincerely hope that the other parties involved do not regret the action that they have taken in removing him from the negotiations.
	Will my right hon. Friend clarify to the House and to the country at large some of the misinformation that is currently being bandied about? A perfect example is the 40 per cent. pay increase that each and every Member of the House is alleged to have had. Furthermore, can he tell us the salary increase that the firefighters have received over the past five years and say whether any modernisation has been tied to that? Has that modernisation been delivered?

John Prescott: Firefighters' wages have been determined by a formula produced in 1978 and they have been connected to the average rise in earnings. The formula has not required them to have any negotiations or tied pay to modernisation. That system operated for 25 years and everyone can welcome the fact that there had not been a strike in the industry for 25 years. The FBU now feels that the formula is not adequate and it wants to change it. That is the point of negotiation.
	The 40 per cent. increase that has been mentioned was given only to the Prime Minister. Members received varying degrees of percentage increase, but I must make the point that the increase was determined by an independent inquiry and not by the House. I recommend such an approach to the FBU.

Michael Weir: In the statement, the Deputy Prime Minister asked us to lift our eyes above the bile and recrimination of the current dispute. May I therefore invite him to repudiate the bile spouted by Richard Simpson, Labour's Deputy Justice Minister in Scotland, who not only accused the firefighters of being fascists but then went on to question their parenthood? Does the Deputy Prime Minister think that someone using such inflammatory language in this dispute is fit to be a Minister?

John Prescott: I am advised that Richard Simpson did not make such a comment. As the question came from such an obvious source, I will treat it with the contempt that it probably deserves.

Jim Sheridan: I welcome my right hon. Friend's announcement that the local government side of the negotiations will be freshened up. However, does he share my concern about the FBU's reluctance to engage in modernisation? I have spoken to firefighters on the picket lines and they are already engaged in modernisation. What they need is a clear package outlining what is asked of them and what they will receive in return. That will enable them to come to an informed judgment and that may or may not bring the dispute to an end.

John Prescott: On the proposals for modernisation, let us consider those for joint control rooms. They are working in certain brigades and, when I ask the FBU about that, it tells me that they operate because of a decision taken by the firemen in that area. That may be their decision but, because the FBU is negotiating national wages and national agreements, it is fair to ask it, at least, to start talking about them. At the moment, it has set its face against that, but that is just for the moment. We will have to return to the negotiating table, and we will insist on the need to discuss such proposals.

James Paice: Can the Deputy Prime Minister tell us whether or not one of his officials costed the deal on Thursday night at £240 million? Yes or no.

John Prescott: There was no cost given. Costs were bandied about—[Interruption.] Let me make this clear. I asked how much the deal would cost because it contained a section that said, XWe do not believe that this will finance itself so we will have to go to the Government", or words to that effect. I was told, XWe're signing the deal. We'll do the figure crunching later." I cannot sign deals on that basis.

John Cryer: Is not it the case that modernisation, as it is called, will mean fewer firefighters, as my right hon. Friend seems to imply? Is he aware that in all three commands in Greater London, firefighter jobs have been lost over a period of 20 years? In the last round of cuts three years ago, five more pumps were lost with a proportionate loss of jobs. How many firefighter jobs does he envisage will be lost as a result of the current process of so-called modernisation?

John Prescott: It appears from what my hon. Friend says that redundancies were already taking place under the existing system, although I do not have that information. All we are saying is let us have a modernised service by discussing the practices in the industry with the union. That is fair enough. Setting our face against discussion does not mean that we will prevent redundancies. As he says, they are already occurring. Let us have a properly manned service that is fair to the firefighters.

Derek Conway: The Deputy Prime Minister's tribute to the armed forces working in the dispute had a hollow ring to it because they still do not have the equipment that the Government said at the beginning of the dispute would be available. Of the 400 modern engines—perhaps he can respond to this when he has finished muttering to his hon. Friends—that were available at the beginning of the dispute, only 15 were deployed, and he has the nerve to tell us today that still only a quarter have been deployed. What exactly is the problem, other than the Deputy Prime Minister?

John Prescott: It is quite wrong to say that 400 engines are available. The hon. Gentleman can get the information on that. There could be 400 vehicles, but some would be without engines or wheels. I do not know what he means. The Prime Minister and the Government have made it clear that 100 are available to be distributed at the request of the armed forces. They will be provided if requested. Indeed, they are being provided, as he can regularly see on the television.

Alice Mahon: Yesterday the Prime Minister said that firefighters should end their ban on overtime in the name of modernisation. Tonight ambulance staff in west Yorkshire go on a 24-hour work-to-rule, mainly because they are stressed out by having to work routine overtime to provide cover. May I tell the Deputy Prime Minister that excessive hours are a 19th century practice, something that the Labour party was born to end? We should not be promoting excessive hours in our emergency services.

John Prescott: I do not know how many hours my hon. Friend works. It is certainly more than eight, but that is by choice, which is an important part of a democratic society. If someone wants to work overtime and get extra income, that is a choice for the individual worker. It is a common practice throughout industry. I know that it is sometimes said that we should work towards getting rid of overtime, but I do not think that she would include that in her manifesto at this stage. Let us get modern working practices in place. We need to work out the solution and provide a modern fire service that is flexible enough to meet all the demands placed on it.

Michael Spicer: Yesterday I met a taxi driver for whom being a regular fireman was a second job. Does the Deputy Prime Minister know of anyone else in similar circumstances?

John Prescott: I note the point. Many firefighters would say that they take a second job. Sometimes that is because they do not get enough basic salary, and perhaps we should consider that problem. In some cases, however, it is to get a second income. If they do not want overtime in the fire service, why take extra work in the form of a second job?

Jimmy Hood: Some of us who have experienced a national dispute in which the Government stand firm against a trade union have been here before. I am not comfortable with seeing a union in conflict with my Government. The Deputy Prime Minister knows that I hold him in high regard and he is right to say that it is better to talk than walk. However, there is something farcical about a situation in which the Government have a veto on negotiations between employers and the trade union. Is it not time that we considered face-to-face negotiations between the Government and the Fire Brigades Union to settle the dispute? It is not just a case of people talking to each another; they have to listen as well.

John Prescott: I am not against face-to-face talks; indeed, I first met Andy Gilchrist and local authority representatives to try to find a way forward in August. I hope it is not proposed that the Government should negotiate with every public sector worker. In some cases, that is called an incomes policy, which always used to cause problems.
	My hon. Friend refers to his own information about disputes with the Government. I found myself in conflict with the Government in 1966, following a dispute between seamen and ship owners, and our movement suffered another glorious defeat. I hope that Andy Gilchrist will not mind my giving him advice: he should be very careful not to get into a conflict with the Government about public pay. All Governments face those issues. My hon. Friend proposes that the Government should take over negotiations, but that would not be a good move, although they are responsible for taxpayers' money and entitled to ask whether any deal fits certain requirements.

Alan Duncan: The appointment of the Minister for Pensions, the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), shows that the Prime Minister has lost all confidence in the Deputy Prime Minister's handling of the issue. Will he now, for the third time of asking, tell the House how the Bain report can convert into increased pay for firefighters without immediate corresponding job losses, especially as it says nothing about overall manning levels?

John Prescott: No, it does not; the report made it clear that firefighters should first go through the gate of modernisation. Bain said that in the first four weeks of that process he could take a number of measures that would not affect jobs; however, they would affect the atmosphere within which the discussions would take place.
	Bain went on to set out a four-year framework. We have heard the argument for a 16 per cent. pay increase in two years. Bain was not in favour of that; he proposed a rise of 11 per cent. in two years. He based that judgment on the changes that could be made, which the hon. Gentleman will see in the appendices to the report. Bain's fuller report would spell out the detail of those proposals.
	Bain went on to say that many more savings could be made in the third and fourth years. Looking over the longer term, the programme would not only meet the needs of pay through modernisation, but change the fire service. I agree with the union that it has been a Cinderella service that we have never properly funded. Legislative changes are needed, and there must be an overall approach to modernisation. We are prepared to do what Bain set out, and it is possible to go through the first stages of his framework without having to find extra money.

Phil Sawford: I spoke to firemen in Kettering on Friday night and visited the fire station again on Monday morning. Does my right hon. Friend recognise that the firefighters do not want to be out on strike, that they want a decent living wage and recognition for the professional work that they do and that they are willing to modernise? Before positions get further entrenched, creating a legacy of bitterness and mistrust, will my right hon. Friend do everything that he can to resolve the dispute as quickly as possible in the best interests of the public and the firefighters?

John Prescott: I have always had the public in mind. Every one of us has to bear it in mind that the dispute poses a threat to life, and I am sure that that is as true of the firefighters as it is of the Government.
	I visited my fire station in Bransholme and had a chat with the firefighters, and I have no doubt that they do not want to be on strike. However, they are firmly convinced that they want changes to the industry and to their pay. They posed the question, XWhat is the worth of the firefighter?" We must address ourselves to precisely that question, but it has to be measured against all the other factors. This is not just about the firefighter.
	We are recognising special conditions and we are saying that we will pay above the existing rate but firefighters have to modernise in return. We all know from visiting fire stations in our constituencies that firefighters are genuine guys who want to sort out the dispute and get on with their job. They like their job but they think that they need to be better rewarded and they want a modernised fire service. That should be uppermost in everybody's mind; I certainly intend to do all that I can to achieve it and I have set out the framework within which we all have to work.

David Burnside: The Deputy Prime Minister will be aware that the Army is providing emergency cover in Northern Ireland during the firefighters' dispute. Is he aware also that the additional manpower back-up for the fire service is reducing troop numbers in Northern Ireland to a dangerously low level? That is due first, to the need for back-up for the low manpower in the Police Service of Northern Ireland and secondly, to low morale in the prison service caused by the release of personal security information to Sinn Fein-IRA through the spy ring in Stormont. Has the Deputy Prime Minister had any discussion with Northern Ireland Office Ministers about increasing troop levels?

John Prescott: As the hon. Gentleman will know, we are in touch with our Northern Ireland colleagues about those matters. He has raised some important matters—I shall raise them with my colleagues and write him a letter to that effect. I am careful not to get involved in the politics of Northern Ireland, which make the situation very different from that in other parts of the United Kingdom, but I shall take up the hon. Gentleman's point and write to him.

Joan Walley: I really want to stand up for professional firefighters in Staffordshire. We are at a crossroads and have reached an impasse. My right hon. Friend and the Fire Brigades Union have to find a way through.
	In Staffordshire, we have embraced modernisation, and part-time and full-time firefighters work alongside one another. The bids with the best savings submitted by Staffordshire to the Government have been turned down. Will my right hon. Friend tell the House how, if we go down the modernisation route, extra money can be found within the agenda of joined-up government to make sure that we can fund the changes that everyone wants and that the public trust?

John Prescott: I think that I said in my statement that there are areas where we should begin discussions, and where it is likely that discussions can take place. I mentioned joint control rooms, but there are other areas. My hon. Friend said that full-time and part-time workers work together in firefighting. That is true when they arrive at a fire, but my understanding is that they cannot go in the same vehicle to that fire. It seems a bit odd that they cannot go in the same vehicle to a fire—that is the sort of thing that we want to talk about with the Fire Brigades Union and ask whether we can make an adjustment. If it can convince us that that is not right, we shall have to take that into account. If it convinces us that it could create safety problems, we would not want to countenance that. However, everyone must get into discussions. The FBU representatives cannot stay out of them and say, XWe won't do it" or stay out for 40 per cent., no strings attached. That is unacceptable—start talking, not walking.

Keith Simpson: May I draw the Deputy Prime Minister back to an earlier question about the likely impact of any settlement, even with efficiency savings, on council tax? His Department must have done some calculations, and he will accept that potentially there will be a major impact, certainly in the short term, on many county councils that are awaiting with trepidation the announcement of the local government finance formula in the next fortnight?

John Prescott: The hon. Gentleman has raised a serious matter. That has never been part of any negotiations that I have seen—it was a comment by, I think, the general secretary of the FBU, who said that 20p would be put on council tax. Quotes and estimates have been given, but they have not been part of our negotiations. We have said that all pay claims above 4 per cent. must be covered by modernisation. Seeking the easy way out, passing the increase on to council tax, is no more acceptable than passing it on to the national taxpayer. As the hon. Gentleman knows, local authorities have the right to make judgments about what they buy with their council tax.

John MacDougall: My right hon. Friend made reference to the signed agreements reached with the FBU on the underground. Would he join me in welcoming the voluntary efforts of many FBU members throughout the country who, as is the case in my constituency, have turned up and supported other efforts to deal with emergency situations where lives were threatened? Does he agree that the current position is that every effort has been made but that further efforts must be made to resolve the issue, otherwise there will be no victors at the end of the day, only losers?

John Prescott: I very much agree. At the end of the day, however, we have to come to some agreement. I pay tribute to those firefighters—when faced with a decision where there is a threat to human life most of them will leave the picket line and go and help. There is a lot of evidence of that—it is the firefighters' nature. That is what they do—they do not have a conflict of conscience, and I think that the whole House would want to congratulate them on that. That kind of spirit, at the end of the day, will solve this. We have to sit down and find agreement between parties who respect one another and accept each other's negotiating position. It is called compromise, it is called negotiations, it is called talking. That is how we will settle this in the end.

John Burnett: If the Attorney-General is proposing to apply to the court, it is inconceivable that he will not tell the Deputy Prime Minister, so will the Deputy Prime Minister tell us if he knows whether the Attorney-General is proposing to apply to the court to invoke section 240 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 to declare that the strike is endangering public safety?

John Prescott: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has a legal background—I suspect, from his bearing, that he probably does. He will know as well as I know that the Attorney-General does not have to tell me about any action that he could take. What he must do, and he has been to see me about it, is to make a judgment about the dispute—whether this dispute may end, as in the case of the 48-hour strike, and whether his intervention would inflame the situation and make the strike go on longer, with all the implications of that for public safety. He has to make that judgment, but he does not have to tell me or ask my position—properly so—about whether he takes an action.

Dennis Skinner: Is my right hon. Friend aware that he did not adequately answer the question from one of those Tory Back-Benchers, who asked him whether he knew any other group of people that had second jobs? The answer is loads of Tory MPs, including a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is making £100,000 a year selling fags to the third world. Will my right hon. Friend answer a question about a statutory incomes policy? Will he tell those people who are calling for public and Government intervention to be careful of their language? We all have the scars to prove what happened last time there was a statutory incomes policy. If he cannot get the money from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will he look into his Department to find the pump-priming money to get the modernisation proposals on their way?

John Prescott: I agree with a great deal of what my hon. Friend says on these matters. We have campaigned long and hard for Members of Parliament to have only one job in the House, and that is what I have done for the past 30 years since I have been a Member. As my hon. Friend reminds us, all the way through the operation of an incomes policy, all those Members who had second jobs were always exempt from the strictures of an incomes policy. Those strictures only ever applied to the ordinary worker, who received the normal payments. As to whether we will find extra resources, until the firefighters sit down and talk about where the resources will come from and how much of the total cost will be covered by modernisation, I cannot answer my hon. Friend's question. Let me be clear: no extra above 4 per cent. will be paid unless we are on course for modernisation and implementing it.

Patrick McLoughlin: When I spoke to—

John Prescott: I thought that statements were supposed to be for one hour.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Deputy Prime Minister has come to the House. I will decide who I call and who I do not call.

Patrick McLoughlin: When I spoke to firemen in Matlock, it was made clear to me that the last thing that they wanted to do was to go on strike. How can the Deputy Prime Minister, with all his vast experience in industrial relations, come to the House today and say, XThis has got nothing to do with me"? He was the man who set up Bain. He is the man who is calling the tune. At the end of the day, whether the Deputy Prime Minister likes it or not, he and the Prime Minister are responsible.

John Prescott: I apologise for any insult or offence that I may have caused, Mr. Speaker, but you know that on the last occasion—[Hon. Members: XOh!"] I am entitled to make a point, even in a modernised House. You know, Mr. Speaker, that there was a requirement that statements would be one hour, and you said to the House that we went longer than that on the last occasion. [Interruption.] I am only repeating what the Speaker said. There was a statement yesterday. As you know, I recognise your judgment in the matter. You said on the last occasion that we had gone over the time allowed after modernisation, and since there was a statement yesterday, I was expressing the thought that we were going well over the hour now. I do exactly as you tell me. I do not challenge you in any way, but I think it fair to point out that I have a grievance about it, and I am entitled—

Mr. Speaker: Order. As a former trade union officer, perhaps I can address the right hon. Gentleman's grievance. I agree that that was a recommendation of the Modernisation Committee, but of course I have discretion in the matter. There were a great many Members standing, and that is why I tested the right hon. Gentleman's patience. There may be other occasions when I have to go beyond the recommendations of the Committee. If the Deputy Prime Minister is patient, perhaps I will let him and the House know that the last hon. Gentleman whom I intended to call was the hon. Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin).

John Prescott: Mr. Speaker, you clearly reflect your trade union experience, to which I immediately bow and which I fully accept.
	The hon. Gentleman's reference to the trade union experience seems appropriate at this time. Of course the Government have a responsibility in these matters. When they negotiate their provisions for local authorities and public services, there should be an element relating to public pay. What we have said on this occasion about paying above that amount we have also said to the local authority workers, who settled only a few months ago. We told them that there could be no more and they observed that decision. In some cases, trade union officials are now advocating the view that more can be paid. In those circumstances, and where such payments are made, we have made it clear that we will want to look at any such agreement.
	That automatically brings me to what Andy Gilchrist told me in August, when I first met him. He asked whether we were interfering as a Government and I made it clear that we were not doing so, but I also said XIf you want a 40 per cent. increase and it has to come from the taxpayer, I am bound to ask how you are financing it." That is my obligation in this job, whether I am a trade union representative or not, although in these circumstances, I happen to be an employer instead.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Speaker's Statement

Mr. Speaker: I have a statement to make in response to a previous point of order.
	I have investigated the point of order raised with me yesterday by the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth). It appears that the Ministry of Defence released to the press a written ministerial statement of which prior notice had not been given to the House. The Minister for the Armed Forces has written to me to apologise for the incident, which he accepts was a serious oversight. He has assured me that it was a genuine administrative error and that no discourtesy to the House was intended.
	I am satisfied that in this case a genuine mistake was made, and on behalf of the House, I accept the very proper apology that has been offered. No doubt, all Departments are still getting used to the new procedures for giving notice of written statements, but this occasion provides a useful opportunity for me again to reiterate that statements of Government policy should be made first to the House.

Points of Order

Gerald Howarth: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am sure that the House will accept the apology that was so promptly and graciously tendered by the Minister for the Armed Forces. May I also thank you for so readily and promptly investigating my complaint? I am sure that the whole House will be grateful to you for your robust response. It will reassure hon. Members on all Benches—save, possibly, the Treasury Bench—that you have again shown the robustness that you demonstrated a moment ago. The House will be grateful to you.

Mr. Speaker: I thank the hon. Gentleman.

John McDonnell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will no doubt be aware that two hours ago, the Government lost their case in the High Court on the challenge made with regard to consultation about airport capacity in the south-east. Have you been approached by a Minister seeking to make a statement today or tomorrow on that important matter? The decision may require the re-running of the whole consultation process, which is clearly significant for many hon. Members.

Anne McIntosh: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise for not giving you more warning of this point of order; I was able to give you very short notice that we had learned that the Government had lost the court case.
	The House will be aware that the consultation process on airport expansion in the foreseeable 30-year period is due to end on 30 November. In those circumstances, have you received a request from the Secretary of State for Transport with regard to his acceding to our earlier request, made on a number of occasions, that the consultation period be allowed a short extension of two months?

Mr. Speaker: No Minister has approached me. Of course, it is not a matter for the Chair, but I am sure that the appropriate Ministers will take note.

Clive Soley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I know that you have an interest in protecting the House's reputation. It has been said inside and outside the House on several recent occasions that Members of Parliament received a 40 per cent. pay rise. Will you investigate the matter? If it is true, someone has their hand in my pay packet because I got only 6 per cent. That is true throughout the House. The 40 per cent. that is sometimes cited refers to the money that was provided for staffing Members' offices. It is right that we employ more people, not least because we have improved our working practices. However, the House's image is damaged when people wrongly claim that we received 40 per cent. increases. Ministers took a larger increase only because they had declined one for several years.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has put the matter on the record.

Alex Salmond: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. All joking and banter aside, do you accept that many hon. Members would infinitely prefer it if you, rather than Ministers, determined the length of time for Ministers' statements?

Mr. Speaker: I believe that that point has been made.

Orders of the Day

Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

John Prescott: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	When the Government came to power in 1997, we had one of the most centralised systems of government in the western world. It had no regional democratic accountability and ignored the needs and aspirations of the regions, where XWhitehall knew best." The system was unsuited to a diverse and changing society, and ill equipped for our modern economy. It allowed divisions between and in the regions to widen.
	In the past five years, we have achieved the most far-reaching and radical programme of constitutional change in living memory. We have handed power back to the people and transformed our system of government through devolution to Scotland and Wales, reform of the House of Lords and modernising local government. The Conservative party opposed all those changes and quietly adopted them later.
	We have begun to reverse the years of neglect. We restored democratic city wide government to London and we have set up strong, business-led regional development agencies in the English regions. We have helped to create a network of eight voluntary regional chambers, and increased investment and employment in all regions to record levels. Our forthcoming planning Bill will strengthen regional planning.
	Today, we published a local government Bill and announced a significant package of freedoms and flexibilities. That will help to improve people's quality of life and their experience of public services. It will allow more decisions to be made locally and reduce bureaucracy. It will also give local councils greater freedom to shape the services that they provide. However, there is a devolution deficit in England. It is a democratic deficit that the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill tries to tackle.

Graham Allen: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on introducing the Bill after many decades of campaigning. It is dear to his heart and to those of many Labour Members. If pre-legislative scrutiny is not possible for the Bill, will he consider allowing a period of such scrutiny for similar measures in future so that our colleagues in all the regions and all those with an interest in them can present their views and thus make the Bills even better?

John Prescott: I shall consider my hon. Friend's point, but he appreciates that the forthcoming measures on local government and on housing are in draft form. Presenting draft Bills to pre-scrutiny Committees means that the House is better informed. I shall bear his point in mind.
	The Government gave the people of Scotland, Wales and London the chance to make more decisions for themselves, and the people of England and Wales the opportunity to have directly elected mayors. The forms of devolution and the structures are different, but they are based on handing power back to the people and letting them decide. The Bill offers, for the first time in our history, opportunities to the English regions similar to those offered to Scotland, Wales and London. That is not before time.
	The Government believe in trusting people. We have no intention of forcing elected assemblies on any region, but we believe that, where people want it, regional government will make a difference. Nor did we force elected assemblies or their equivalent on the people of Scotland, Wales or London: all had a referendum.

David Curry: The right hon. Gentleman said that the Bill offers the same opportunities to the English regions as were offered to Scotland and Wales. Given that the Scottish Parliament has tax-raising powers and a significant degree of devolution, has he amended the proposals in the White Paper to make those same powers available to the elected English regional assemblies?

John Prescott: I did not say that they were the same powers. The principle of decentralising decision making has found different forms of expression in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and London. Other parts of the country are not exactly the same as, for example, the London area. We have made a judgment about what powers should be available and what decentralisation should take place in the English regions, and that is what we are putting before the House. It will help us to provide better public services and better decision making.
	Our White Paper, XYour Region, Your Choice", was published in May this year to set out our plans for elected regional assemblies in those regions in which people wish to have them. Elected assemblies will take functions down from central Government, not up to the local authorities. They will be fit and lean, with real powers to make a difference and form a strong partnership with both the public and private sectors. We want to bring democracy to the regions, to reduce bureaucracy rather than increase it, and, above all, to provide regional accountability.

Gillian Shephard: I would like to return to the Deputy Prime Minister's comparisons between these proposals and the devolution in Scotland, Wales and London. Scotland, Wales and London have delineated boundaries. What will be the constituencies for the referendums to determine whether the people in a given region wish to have an elected assembly? In some cases, those regions correspond with people's sense of identity, but in others, such as the south-east, they certainly do not. It must worry the right hon. Gentleman, as a true democrat, that it will not be easy to take the feeling of the south-east, given that there is no real sense of identity in that region, either in terms of geography or of—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Lady must be more concise in her interventions.

John Prescott: The right hon. Lady was in the Government who established the regional offices. They had no difficulty in determining the regional boundaries, which are the same as those designated in the Bill. We have done exactly the same. I do not see why she should feel differently in opposition from how she did in government. If we want to make progress on regional government, timetables are important. If we got into a debate about boundaries, it would take an awfully long time to make these decisions. That has been tried—we all know of debates about whether somewhere should be in the north-west or the north-east, for example. We intend to ensure that it is possible to introduce regional government, and to give the people in the regions the choice. We are not saying that they should have assemblies; we want to give them the choice. The measures will be based on the existing boundaries.

Lawrie Quinn: Is not that the key point of this debate? Do not the Deputy Prime Minister's proposals stand in stark contrast to what happened in the metropolitan areas—North Yorkshire, Humberside and Cleveland, for example—which the Conservatives imposed on the country without any real consultation, involvement or participation of the local people?

John Prescott: My hon. Friend has highlighted the fact that, for the Conservatives, the rhetoric of opposition is entirely different to what they did in government, but we must take that as part of the political game. After all, they are the people who opposed the devolution of powers to London, Scotland and Wales, then quietly came round to accepting it later. I presume that that might happen in this case as well.
	The Bill responds to the desires that many regions are already expressing.

Andrew George: On that point—

John Prescott: Hang on, I have not even got started on this section.
	The Bill does not establish elected regional assemblies; that must come later. That was also the case for Scotland, Wales and London. It is not the case that people voting in a referendum will not know what they are voting for. The White Paper, XYour Region, Your Choice", sets out our proposals. The removal of one tier of local government is an integral part of the regional assembly package. We want government to remain streamlined, and once we have received the boundary committee's local government recommendations for a region, we will publish a statement that will be put to the electorate before any referendum. That statement will cover both the proposals for any local government reorganisation and a summary of what the assembly would do and how it would work.

Eric Martlew: I will not say which region I think Cumbria should be in, but the reality is that the area that I represent is crying out for single-tier local government, whether we get regional assemblies or not. Will the Deputy Prime Minister consider that proposal?

John Prescott: As my hon. Friend well knows, the proposals in the Bill are for unitary government. We believe that if any regions want regional government or want to take a step towards it, we should test opinion with a referendum. We will ensure that the boundary committee puts in the proposals for, on the one hand, regional government and, on the other, unitary government.
	The proportion of people covered by unitary government varies from area to area—it is large in the north-west—but I will not get into the argument about whether Cumbria is in the north-west or the north-east. Both have high populations under unitary government, but my hon. Friend will find that the figure for the eastern region is low. We are making it clear that we do not want three tiers of government in a region. Under regional government, where the people choose it themselves, there will be a unitary local government structure.

Alan Beith: Will the Deputy Prime Minister consider the position that he has put my constituents in, although I speak as one who in principle favours the Bill that he is putting before the House? If the boundary committee decides to make local government more remote by providing single-tier county local government, people will be invited to vote against the local government system that they want to get the region that they want. To make matters worse, the decision will be taken by voters who are not affected by the proposals and who live in those parts of the region that already have single-tier government.

John Prescott: I understand the right hon. Gentleman's point, but we did not want people to be confused about what the local government structure should be. We could have a local government reorganisation recommending some kind of unitary authority and perhaps go on to a referendum on regions, but we have said that we will have the regions and that the boundary committee will take into account how the unitary structure is to work.
	The right hon. Gentleman is correct: people might vote against the regions if they do not like all that and if they do not like the local government structure, but they will have the choice. That is what we are providing. We have made our decision, and we did not want to leave any doubt as to whether there would be three-tier government. The House can imagine what this lot opposite would say if we agreed that the county structure was there—[Interruption.] Yes, this lot—that will do. The House can image what they would say about the county structure, so we have chosen to strike a balance in this way.

Andrew George: I approve of the principle, and the Deputy Prime Minister's saying that he wants to challenge the XWhitehall knows best" philosophy reassures me, but he also said that the regions would be set up where people want them. On 16 October, I received an answer to a parliamentary question that states that more people from Cornwall showed support for a regional assembly than did the rest of the country put together. Surely, if he wants to deliver, he should respond to that demand now.

John Prescott: The hon. Gentleman knows that we are doing our best to take account of the Cornish interest and we recognised the Cornish language, which he welcomed. I have a long interest in regional development and I have visited the south-west many times. I must tell him that I expected considerable division there, because it always seemed to me that Cornwall hated Devon, they both hated Bristol and they all hated London. I did not think that they would get together to this extent, but, as he knows, the assemblies that they have set up—the chambers, as they are called in the south-west—have worked together. That includes Devon, Cornwall and the whole region. I am comforted by that, and I think that those areas are beginning to see themselves as the south-west region. From what I have seen in the polls, there is considerable demand for regional government, with or without the Cornish assembly.

Several hon. Members: rose—

John Prescott: I have given way enough. I want to make progress.

David Curry: Will the Deputy Prime Minister give way?

John Prescott: The right hon. Gentleman has had one go.
	It might help the House if I set out the timetable that we envisage for the first referendum. Subject to parliamentary approval, we will decide whether the region or regions should undergo a local government review without delay. The relevant provisions of the Bill will be commenced on Royal Assent to allow that. We will then direct the boundary committee to conduct a review of the local government arrangements in the selected region or regions. Those reviews will take about a year to complete. We will lay an order for a referendum or referendums as soon as possible after that.
	I turn to the detail of the Bill. Part 1 enables referendums to be held, including setting out what the referendum question should be. As the House is aware, the Electoral Commission has a statutory duty to comment on the intelligibility of any referendum question. This is the first time that it has been asked to do this, and I am pleased to say that it announced yesterday that the referendum question set out in the Bill meets its guidelines. The commission made some small but constructive suggestions for the wording of the preamble. We shall consider them carefully and respond in due course.

Gary Streeter: The Deputy Prime Minister will know that the average turnout on referendums for directly elected mayors was 29.2 per cent. If the first region to have a referendum votes for regional government with a turnout of 29 or 30 per cent., is that a legitimate vote to change the constitution of this country?

John Prescott: That is a little more than what the Tory party gets at the polls, is it not? I cannot avoid making that point, because it is a nice one to make. The votes on directly elected mayors have varied. Some have been higher than those for council elections, and some have been lower. It is right to quote the average, but some have been well over 50 per cent., which is higher than is achieved for council elections. The polls in Scotland, Wales and London were high, so there was a strong endorsement for those measures. We should wait until the debate in the communities has started, and see how people respond to it. I have to take this matter into account when I agree on whether a referendum should take place in a region. All the signs are that demand and support for regional government are a lot higher than most people predicted many years ago.

Alex Salmond: I agree with the Deputy Prime Minister on referendums. He is aware that any Minister who brings legislation to the House must have credibility. Would he care to reflect on the fact that the Minister in the Scottish Parliament whom the Deputy Prime Minister said was innocent of attacking the firefighters has resigned in the past few minutes? In the light of that, would the Deputy Prime Minister, for his own credibility, rephrase and rework his comment that the attack on firefighters was never said?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Not in the context of this debate.

Several hon. Members: rose—

John Prescott: I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice).

Gordon Prentice: I am struggling to find the right page, but I think that the Library brief reminds us that the percentage turnout for the referendum in London was in the mid-30s. I do not think that that is a ringing endorsement. The turnout in the Welsh referendum was just over 50 per cent., and the yes vote was won by 0.6 per cent. That was when the Government were actively campaigning for a yes vote. Why will not the Government put the neutrality to which I referred earlier to one side and actively campaign for a yes vote on the English regions?

John Prescott: I am not neutral. I am campaigning for this Bill.
	Part 2 provides a power to direct the boundary committee for England before any referendum to review the structure of the existing two-tier local authority areas in a region—that is, areas that have country and district councils. We intend to implement its recommendations if people vote for a regional assembly.
	Part 3 allows the Electoral Commission to give advice on the electoral areas for regional assemblies. Part 4 provides a power to make grants in respect of the activities of existing voluntary regional chambers. Part 5 covers general provisions, such as commencement and expenditure.

Peter Pike: I support the concept of regional assemblies. If existing unitary authorities have a strong view that they would like to be part of a new wider authority, such as Blackburn wanting to be part of East Lancashire under the regional concept, would my right hon. Friend allow that to be considered during this process?

John Prescott: I would be wise not to comment on any boundary changes between council and local authorities.

Peter Pike: But does my right hon. Friend want to?

John Prescott: I would still be wise not to comment at this stage.
	Before a referendum is held in a region, the independent boundary committee must have conducted a review of local government in that region and made its recommendations. That is what part 2 is about. Regional assemblies would add a third tier of elected government below the national level in areas that currently have both county and district councils. We believe that that is one tier too many. It is proposed that, if people want a regional assembly, we will move to a wholly unitary local government structure.

Matthew Green: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

John Prescott: I am having difficulty getting on with my speech and answering questions. I shall give way in a few minutes, but I must make progress.
	Our proposal will ensure that government remains streamlined. As I said earlier, this is about bringing democracy to the regions and reducing bureaucracy, not increasing it. The review will recommend changes only to those parts of the region that currently have both a county and district council. Existing unitary authorities will not face any structural or boundary changes.
	I know that some Members are worried about the fate of counties. Let me emphasise that, contrary to some ill-founded speculation, we have no agenda for abolishing the counties—or, for that matter, the districts. It will be for the independent boundary committee to recommend the best wholly unitary local government structure for the regions.
	The Government will issue guidance to the boundary committee on the local government reviews. We will publish it in draft for consultation shortly. Proposals for local government changes will be published before any referendum. Voters will know the full implications for local government when they vote. We do not intend to go ahead with the proposed reorganisation if a region rejects the idea of an elected assembly.

Matthew Green: The Deputy Prime Minister may or may not know that in Shropshire there is a growing demand, not just from Labour and the Liberal Democrats but from the Conservative party, for a single unitary authority. However, we do not want to have to wait for some referendum. There is quite a lot of opposition in Shropshire to becoming part of the West Midlands regional assembly. The Deputy Prime Minister may well find that people vote against an outcome that they actually want. Why can he not decouple the two processes?

John Prescott: We have made a judgment, as I mentioned earlier. The boundary committee will make the decision. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman gives the committee his views.
	Which regions will go first? That is an important question. It is about choice: no region will be forced to have an elected regional assembly, or indeed a referendum. This will be the choice of the people. They will make the decision; I will merely provide the circumstances in which they can make it.
	We will sound out the level of public interest in a referendum in each region while the Bill is before Parliament. We want to hear the views of people in the regions. We also want to hear from existing regional chambers, local authorities, local MPs and MEPs and others. We look forward to the consultation. In some regions, the level of interest may be inconclusive—not high enough to clearly justify holding a referendum, but not low enough to rule it out definitely. Alternatively, so many regions may show a high level of interest that we may need to consider whether to ration the number of reviews conducted simultaneously. In such instances, we may want to take account of other factors, such as the effects on local government of conducting a review.

Julian Lewis: I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for giving way at last. He said earlier that the county councils were not under threat from his proposals, or at least not under threat from the Government. I noticed that he had difficulty in keeping a straight face while he said it. What is his response to the leader of Hampshire county council, Councillor Ken Thornber, who has pointed out that eight of the 10 powers listed in the White Paper for regional government would overlap with existing county council powers? Does that not show that, far from powers being drawn down from central Government towards the people, they will be taken away from the people when they are removed from the counties which, no doubt, will then be abolished?

John Prescott: I do not agree. [Laughter.] That is my right.
	The hon. Gentleman should bear in mind exactly what he did when his party was in power. He supported an Administration who abolished the Greater London council, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, West Midlands, West Yorkshire and Merseyside. There was no referendum. There was no consultation. They just abolished those councils. It is a cheek for him to stand up today and talk about what we might be doing. We have made it clear that the issue of regional government will be decided by the people in the regions. They will know what kind of local government structure they want: it will be their choice. That is why the White Paper is called XYour Region, Your Choice".

Several hon. Members: rose—

John Prescott: I think that I have given way enough for now.
	Before I sum up, I want to say something about part 4, which creates a new power for the funding of the eight existing regional chambers. We helped to set up those chambers to contribute to the preparation of regional economic strategies by the regional development agencies. The chambers are made up of local representatives and key stakeholders—in some cases with a majority of Tory councillors, but we will leave that aside—from the social, economic and environmental sectors in the regions. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) is laughing. He knows that one of his party's chairmen is a member of an assembly. He has not heard that the party in London is against it.
	The chambers have been a success story. I take this opportunity to thank all those involved, from all political parties, for the hard work that they have put into getting the chambers up and running and working together for the benefit of their regions. They have taken on an increasingly significant role. All chambers now scrutinise the work of the RDAs, and many are involved in the production of regional sustainable development frameworks and the preparation of regional planning guidance.

Tony Wright: Before my right hon. Friend sums up, may I ask him not to undersell this measure? He may remember that in 1945, Clement Attlee said that the referendum was a device alien to all our traditions. It has now become central to them. We used to make them up as we went along. Surely the importance of the Bill is that we now run referendums coherently and fairly. Is that not a great advance?

John Prescott: It is. That is an important point. Knowing this to be a controversial measure on which people had strong views, I thought that it was right to have a referendum. It was in our manifesto. We have introduced the Bill to let the people make the choice. I personally would like to see regional government throughout the UK but I am prepared to let the people make the choice. I must advocate our case—I will in those circumstances—make clear what I believe is the best way forward, and then the decision will be made in a referendum.
	Five of the eight chambers have taken on the role of the regional planning body. In light of the positive responses that we have received to our planning Green Paper, we now believe that it is right for all eight regional chambers to carry out that role in the absence of an elected regional assembly.
	At present, the chambers get most of their funding from local authorities. As the role of the chambers expands, in particular on planning, a more general funding mechanism is needed. That is why the funding power provided by part 4 is required.
	The Bill is at the heart of our programme to modernise our constitution, to decentralise power and to deliver better public services. It is a crucial step towards establishing a democratic voice for the English regions—a voice that has been denied them for far too long. We want to give the people of our regions the right to choose—the ability to decide what is best for them. The Conservative party's amendment would deny the people in the regions that choice. It would deny them the opportunity for change.
	The Conservative party does not like devolution but it eventually comes on board. Remember that it opposed on Second Reading the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill in May 1997, but later changed its mind. It opposed on Second Reading the Greater London Authority (Referendum) Bill in November 1997, but later changed its mind. It opposed on Second Reading the Government of Wales Bill in December 1997, but later changed its mind. It opposed on Second Reading the Scotland Bill in January 1998, but later changed its mind, and it opposed on Second Reading the Greater London Authority Bill in December 1998, but later changed its mind. At least it is consistent in its opposition. First it opposes and then it changes its mind. I am sure, bearing in mind that track record, that it will not be too long before it has another rethink. I ask the House to reject the amendment and to support the Bill, which I commend to the House.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. I remind hon. Members that there will be a 12- minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.

David Davis: I beg to move, To leave out from XThat" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill because it is a centralising measure that will have the effect of undermining local democracy; it places too much power in the hands of the Secretary of State to determine the timing of each referendum in each region; it fails to protect the right of individual communities to determine the local government structure that suits them best; the arrangements for referenda are inadequate and insufficiently defined; it fails to recognise that unitary authorities are not an appropriate solution in all parts of the country; it fails to recognise the needs of rural areas; and it is incapable of protecting long-established county councils.
	The Deputy Prime Minister advances three main arguments for regional government. He claims that there are economic benefits, that people want to feel part of a region and that he is introducing democracy to existing regional bureaucracies. I will examine each of those claims in turn and pass by some of the constitutional theories that he seemed to invent during his speech.
	What are the economic benefits of regional government? The Deputy Prime Minister said in his White Paper:
	XElected regional assemblies will develop a strategic vision"
	and that they will
	Ximprove economic performance".
	All available evidence suggests exactly the opposite. Let us consider what is happening abroad. Many European countries, generally those that are much larger than England, have existing layers of regional government, but it is striking that in those countries disparities between the regions are getting larger, not smaller.
	Let us consider what is happening here. In the past few years, existing regional quangos have lobbied for more taxpayers' money for their area—understandably—and since the quangos have been established, disparities have grown larger, not smaller, just as they have in Europe. Furthermore, the subsidies have largely funded inter-regional competition, rather than specialisation to the areas competitive advantage.

Tony Lloyd: The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Germany. Of course, we must differentiate between regions in the former East Germany and those in the west. Does he accept that there is far less variation in the old federal republic than we experience in this country? There is enormously less variation, and it is a much fairer system.

David Davis: I was talking about the trend in the difference between the regions. I am not comparing old East German regions with old West German ones. I am following the CBI, which said that the differences are getting worse.
	The same is true in Britain: where we have regional government things are getting worse. The Government's own preferred measure of unemployment, the labour force survey, reveals that the highest unemployment rate in the country is 7 per cent. Where? In London, where there is a new tier of government. The second highest rate is 6.5 per cent. Where? In Scotland, where there is a new tier of government.
	Let me offer a quotation:
	XBusiness is disappointed that the government is pushing ahead with Regional Assemblies. English regions do need to help improve economic development, but this is not the right way to do it. They will simply add complications to the decision-making process and undermine the efforts of the Regional Development Agencies."
	Those are not my words, but those of the CBI's deputy director general, Mr. John Cridland, who also said:
	XThe Government needs to take action to improve economic performance and leadership skills in all regions rather than concentrating on establishing expensive talking shops in just a few areas."
	Perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister believes that there is more support from business for regional government in the north-east. That is probably his best target.

Joyce Quin: The right hon. Gentleman mentioned London and Scotland in support of his preposterous theory. I note that he did not mention Wales. Is that because the figures do not back up his case? Given that he is not now opposing the devolution settlement in Scotland, Wales and London, is he not for once tempted to get ahead of the game and accept the principle of devolution, rather than having to play catch-up with public opinion?

David Davis: I will return to the constitutional aspects of what the right hon. Lady said, because the Deputy Prime Minister was disingenuous in his comparison between these regional proposals and the arrangements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. For now, I am simply talking about the economic arguments, which do not support her case. She is a north-east Member, and business people in the north-east are worried that the proposals will hinder rather than help them and will over-politicise the RDAs regeneration work. That was said in The Economist not that long ago, quoting Stephen Rankin, director of the CBI in the north-east.

John Pugh: The right hon. Gentleman has said first, that the new bodies have done untold economic damage, and secondly, that they are expensive talking shops. Either they are institutions that do damage, or they are talking shops—they cannot really be both.

David Davis: I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that talking shops can do damage: over-regulation is one of the most damaging things in Britain today, and it largely arises from talking shops. He seems to think that hyperbole will make his argument. The onus of proof is with the Government—they are the ones who say that the Bill is justified by the significant changes in productivity that will be wrought by it, which is sheer unmitigated nonsense. I am demonstrating that it has not worked before.

Richard Burden: The right hon. Gentleman has obviously been trawling the evidence, so would he like to comment on that produced by the Work Foundation, formerly the Industrial Society, on the contribution that decentralised Government structures can make to economic performance by boosting productivity and in the development of industrial clusters? If he has not seen that evidence, may I refer him to the foundation's submission to the Select Committee on Trade and Industry a few months ago?

David Davis: I should be happy to see the evidence, as I used to be a director of the Industrial Society. However, all the major business organisations are against the hon. Gentleman's argument. The business clusters to which he refers do not require regional assemblies of any sort.
	What will be the next aspect of the economic impact of regional assemblies? How much will they cost? They will cost the taxpayer billions of pounds. In his speech, the Deputy Prime Minister tried to dance around the proposed abolition of county councils, but that will entail sizeable, one-off local government reorganisation costs. He of all people should remember the abolition of Humberside county council, as both his constituency and mine are within the area that it used to cover. The one-off cost for the abolition of that council was £53 million. The council left behind relatively impoverished public services, as the right hon. Gentleman will know because we both suffer from them. The former Humberside police force had few assets, for example, so that £53 million represented only the visible cost.If the costs of regional government are in the same league, the abolition of the remaining 34 county councils could cost up to £1.8 billion in 1999 figures. The current equivalent would be about £2 billion.

Parmjit Dhanda: Could there not be efficiency savings? At present, for example, one authority might be responsible for roads while another is responsible for road calming; or one authority might be responsible for pavements, while another is responsible for shrubbery and trees. Would not unitary authorities be able to make savings?

David Davis: The hon. Gentleman confuses agencies with local authorities, but, in any event, such economies of scale do not work well in government. What matters more is that there should be a reflection of local opinion and local democracy.
	In London, the Greater London Authority spends £34 million a year on administration. Based on its per capita cost, regional assemblies in England outside London would cost more than £300 million a year. That excludes programme expenditure, which would involve additional waste.
	The total long-term cost of the lease of the GLA building is £120 million. The Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly buildings are both over budget and it is estimated that they will cost about £210 million and £50 million respectively—although no doubt the final amounts will be much more.
	Can the Deputy Prime Minister assure us today that if the north-east or the south-west took the regional option, they would not want new assembly buildings, just like those in Wales or Scotland? Of course he cannot, because it is certain that they will want those buildings—at massive extra cost to the taxpayer.
	The Deputy Prime Minister will remember the following pledge from Labour's 1997 manifesto. He may even have been its author. The manifesto stated that regional assemblies would be established only following
	Xconfirmation by an independent auditor that no additional public expenditure overall would be involved".
	However, many regions will believe that they would receive more money from the Treasury to fund regional government, so can the Deputy Prime Minister confirm to the House that the pledge still stands? I shall allow him to intervene if he wants to do so—obviously he does not. There is no economic reason to introduce regional government.

Matthew Green: In Shropshire, the Conservative party supports the unitary principle, which would involve the abolition of five district councils and setting up a unitary Shropshire authority. That would make savings such as those described by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda). Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that the Conservatives are wrong to support a unitary authority in Shropshire?

David Davis: That decision is for Shropshire, not for this place. The hon. Gentleman made the same point 20 minutes ago and it carries no more weight now than it did then.
	Let us move on to the Deputy Prime Minister's next point. He claims that people want to feel part of a region, but regional government will do nothing to give power to local people; instead, it will take it further away. Decisions currently made by county councils, which are close to local communities, will be transferred to regional assemblies, which are further from local communities. A body of about 35 to 40 people will take decisions that have huge ramifications for thousands of people, and what is right for one part of the region may not necessarily be right for another part. Regions will be unable to square the circle of interests between urban and rural areas.
	The Deputy Prime Minister's plans threaten to set region against region—each one fighting for economic advantage over the other. The most successful regions could do well, just as in Europe, but the less successful will lose the young and the ambitious to the more successful. At the same time, regional government will force the abolition of the one unit with which people identify—the county. Under the proposals, planning decisions now made in Hereford will be taken 60 miles away in Birmingham. Decisions now made in Kendal will be taken 75 miles away in Manchester, and those now made in Truro will be taken 90 miles away in Exeter. Why?

Andrew Lansley: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the removal of decision making from county councils to regional bodies will be accompanied by a dilution of democratic accountability? I have calculated that in the east of England, whereas 6,000 or 7,000 electors are represented by each county councillor in my constituency, about 160,000 electors would be represented by each of the directly elected members of a regional assembly. The electors would never see those people or know anything about them.

David Davis: My hon. Friend hits the point exactly. The areas involved would be at least three times the size of parliamentary constituencies.
	The Deputy Prime Minister has talked about the democratic deficit, but why does he want to introduce the proposals? Could it be because the counties tend to vote Conservative, so they will be gerrymandered into what the Government hope will be Labour-run regions instead?
	Our counties have legitimacy because they are organic communities, established by tradition, history and custom. Regions will be nothing more than lines on a map drawn by the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen. They will have no legitimacy whatever, especially if they are imposed on counties against the will of those who live in them.

Hilton Dawson: What legitimacy does the county of Lancashire have since being denuded of Blackpool and Blackburn under the previous Conservative Government's legislation?

David Davis: I should think that the county of Lancashire has much more legitimacy in the eyes of those who live in it than the new north-western region will have if it ever comes into being.

John Prescott: This is all about choice.

David Davis: Let us deal with the major problem with the Bill. The Deputy Prime Minister says the Bill will bring about more democracy, but, in a democracy, voters have to know what they are voting for. They need to know what the choice is, to use his own word. For that to happen, the proposition has to come before the vote, but with the Bill, it will be vote first, proposition afterwards. The Bill proposes that referendums should be held without voters knowing the structure or powers of the assemblies for which they are asked to vote. Even the Deputy Prime Minister would have a hard job to convince anyone that that is democratic. [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but the exchanges across the Chamber are not helping the debate.

David Davis: There is a proper role for referendums in constitutional change, but only if done properly. If it is not done properly, it can be a dangerous tool. The Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, who is no longer in the Chamber, said that Clement Attlee—who is, I think, one of the Deputy Prime Minister's heroes—famously described the referendum as the device of demagogues and dictators. We may not always go as far as he did, but what is certain is that pre-legislative referendums of the type the Deputy Prime Minister is proposing are the worst type of all.
	Referendums should be held when the electorate are in the best possible position to make a judgment. They should be held when people can view all the arguments for and against and when those arguments have been rigorously tested. In short, referendums should be held when people know exactly what they are getting. So legislation should be debated by Members of Parliament on the Floor of the House, and then put to the electorate for the voters to judge.
	We should not ask people to vote on a blank sheet of paper and tell them to trust us to fill in the details afterwards. For referendums to be fair and compatible with our parliamentary process, we need the electors to be as well informed as possible and to know exactly what they are voting for. Referendums need to be treated as an addition to the parliamentary process, not as a substitute for it.

Richard Burden: The right hon. Gentleman has described the importance of Members of Parliament debating matters so that electors can make a choice. Is not it more important in this context that people in the regions are able to debate the issue, think about the kind of institutions that they want to create and be able to vote on that? Is not that precisely what is being suggested, not just in the referendum proposal but in the proposal for regional chambers and other initiatives?

David Davis: That would apply only if people could create their own regions in the way that their argument leads them to do. What is being said to them, however, is XYou vote, and we'll decide what sort of region you will have."
	As it stands, the Bill is an affront to those principles. It asks people to vote for proposals that are unspecified, untried and untested. I would have relished the opportunity to debate the details of regional assemblies, but, clearly, the Deputy Prime Minister is not ready to have that debate. It is simply wrong for the Government to come to the House and act in this way. If they do, how can we trust them when it comes to the referendum? Major constitutional changes justify the use of referendums because the constitutional rights of our citizens are owned by the people and not by politicians. However, it is important that referendums are not misused simply as a snapshot of volatile changes of opinion, perhaps as a result of pressure of Government propaganda. That is why Donald Dewar and John Smith used to talk about the settled will of the population.
	The concept of settled will is that of an idea that has taken root in the minds of the people, has resonance in their daily lives and is a stable part of the way in which they think the country should be run. Because referendums are supposed to reflect the settled will of the people, we need to have thresholds below which they do not carry the day.

Alan Whitehead: As I follow the right hon. Gentleman's argument, he claims so little legitimacy for what the Government suggest in the Bill that I imagine that he would want to abolish any regional assemblies created by the procedure as soon as a Conservative Government, were one to be elected, came to power. Would he abolish any regional assemblies elected by this method? What would he do with the money that had been transferred from the unelected sphere to the elected sphere? Would he set up new patronage bodies to administer that money?

David Davis: The hon. Gentleman has clearly not been listening even to the last few words that I said. I have been describing the grounds on which a referendum provides an acceptable and democratic outcome. Our view is that a reasonable level for the threshold that determines a settled will is that at least half the people vote, and a majority are in favour of the change proposed. That is a reasonable measure of the popular will. If the proposal receives the support of at least 25 per cent. of the total electorate, it should carry the day. That is pretty reasonable. Let us consider the result of the Scottish referendum. That exceeded the 25 per cent. threshold by 49 per cent. The Welsh referendum—

Richard Shepherd: What my right hon. Friend is saying is that, on a free election, if only 25 per cent., or one in four people, supported the proposal, and 75 per cent. of the population does not come out to vote for it, that is an authority by which one proceeds with profound constitutional change. That has never been so in our history previously, until we had new Labour and its contorted and distorted referendums rejigging our constitution. Will not he accept that for our party to have accepted the Welsh outcome, in which 75 per cent. of a free people in a free election did not support an assembly, is an extraordinary turnabout?

David Davis: My hon. Friend deserves a proper answer and I shall endeavour to give it. I know that he views these matters with a passion that is probably unequalled anywhere in this Chamber. We live in a time when referendums are used for constitutional amendment. I take the view that that is correct for the reason that I gave earlier. The constitutional rights of the people belong to the people and not to the politicians whom they temporarily elect. Therefore, we must determine at what level of support a referendum becomes valid.
	I do not want to set the threshold too high as that could rightly be dressed up as a bogus argument. I want to make an argument that is appropriate to the level of constitutional change. If this issue carried as much force as the proposals for the Scottish Parliament, I would set the threshold a little higher, but I grant my hon. Friend that it is a matter of judgment. We are now talking about bodies that will hold the powers partly of central Government but mostly those currently held by county councils. On that basis, the level that I have suggested is acceptable. I take his point that it is a fine judgment to determine what makes a referendum an acceptable basis for a decision.

Parmjit Dhanda: rose—

George Osborne: rose—

David Davis: I will not give way as I am coming to the end of my remarks.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) made the point that the figure of 25.2 per cent., which was the one obtained in the Welsh referendum, would have just passed the test. However, there was a great deal of controversy about whether the referendum was appropriate, and I accept that. However, the point that I want to make is that there is no threshold in the Bill. It should not be passed. It contains too many unanswered questions, and the Government have used up their quota of trust.
	We reject regional assemblies not because we oppose devolution, but because we support it. We reject them not because we oppose economic development, but because we support it. We reject this Bill not because we oppose democracy, but because we support it. Any Member of the House who claims to support democracy will reject the Bill.

Tony Lloyd: The speech of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) was a thin attempt to belittle what many Labour Members consider to be one of the most exciting proposals for change that we will see in our political lifetimes. I know that some Labour Members and some from my region of the north-west disagree with me, but I have believed passionately in regional government for many years. Although my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has been accused of being too bold, many of us know that he has had to strike a compromise that he himself recognises as too timid. Nevertheless, I congratulate him from the bottom of my political heart on what he has already achieved in the regions.
	This country is probably the most centralised in western Europe, but we have had regional government for all my political lifetime. The problem with that regional government is that it has been government for the south-east by a system of governance that favours that region. That shows up in every facet of our national life. It is shown in the increasing concentration over the years of resources in the south-east, and it is shown in the way in which decisions are taken centrally. In recent times, when there have been degrees of decentralisation, the process has been more equivalent to the system of colonial governors in the former British empire than to the type of modern democratic structure that we would expect. The case for the redistribution of power is overwhelming. We are debating how we democratise the huge numbers of decisions taken by government on a daily basis.
	There are different estimates of the resources spent by quangos or non-departmental governmental bodies in the north-west. A low estimate is that the figure is about £1 billion, but massively higher estimates suggest that the spending of as much as £7 billion is determined by bodies that operate regionally but that are not accountable to local people. Everyone must face up to a profound democratic challenge if we are to take control of that layer of decision-making. Although it suits the Opposition to oppose the measure as an attack on the power structure of local government, the rationalisation of local government in unitary authorities, which we have had in urban areas for a political generation, makes a great deal of sense. The creation of a regional dimension at last allows the people of our regions, not those outside them, to decide how to allocate their resources.

George Osborne: The hon. Gentleman knows that I, too, am from the north-west. The democratic challenge is that although Manchester, which he represents, might want the regional assembly, Cheshire might not. If every person in Cheshire votes against it, it can still be imposed on us and we will lose our county council, which is not what we want.

Tony Lloyd: Cheshire is certainly part of the north-west regional identity. That phenomenon goes beyond the boundaries of local government institutions. I do not cease to be a Lancastrian because the county of Lancashire did not have a role in the city of Manchester during my lifetime. Lancashire has not even been the administrative unit for parts of Greater Manchester for more than a generation. That does not stop me, my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Mr. Turner) or my hon. Friends from other parts of the north-west being proud to be profoundly Lancastrian as part of our birthright. We are talking not about inventing emotion for a county identity, but about the efficiency and accountability of structures of governance.
	I have a criticism that is relevant to all Governments. Manufacturing is much more important in the north-east, the north-west, Yorkshire and Humberside than elsewhere. That industry has suffered disproportionately in the system of governance of modern Britain. Decisions on the British economy have tended to favour the service economy, not manufacturing, and have a differential impact on the north. The House of Commons has allowed successive Governments to get away with failing to reflect different regional interests. It is vital that the regions have another layer of interest and influence. They need to be able to tell the Government that they must reflect the increasingly different interests of the regions. Scotland, Wales and Greater London have that ability. It is time for the influence and interests of the northern regions and elsewhere to catch up.
	My region has been disadvantaged in many ways. Hon. Members will remember the fairly recent debate on the Daresbury site. It seems to me that a decision on that was made on the advice of people with a south-eastern, or near south-eastern, outlook. They could not understand that it was possible to have world-class science in the north-west of England.
	One of the major decisions for the Government will be on the merger of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology—UMIST—and Manchester university. I hope that the merger takes place because it will create a university that offers world-class science. That process would be more straightforward, however, if the new university were supported by a region that recognised the essential nature of the science-base to its long-term future.

Graham Brady: The hon. Gentleman mentioned the synchrotron investment. The Government, whom he supports, chose to give a £500 million investment to Oxfordshire, not the north-west, which was patently the wrong decision. However, I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that a north-west regional assembly would have had a greater influence on the decision by railing against it. The decision was always going to be made by central Government. It was the task of the House and hon. Members to stand up for our region.

Tony Lloyd: As the hon. Gentleman knows, north-west MPs, certainly on the Labour Benches, fought a long campaign, but alas we lost. I recognise the action taken by the Department of Trade and Industry to make that pill less bitter; nevertheless it was still a bitter pill for the north-west to swallow. North-west MPs, supported by a strong regional assembly speaking with a coherent and consistent voice for the north-west, would be massively emboldened in breaking the stranglehold of the southern thinking which has dominated this country for as long as I can remember.
	There is very little to fear from the Bill in the north-west. I say to the doubters among Conservative Members that the beauty of the Bill is that it offers choice. It will allow people to campaign, as I will do strongly, for regional government for the north-west, and it will allow those who oppose it to campaign against it. That is exactly how things should be in a democracy. The advantage of the Bill is that it will give the choice to the people who will be affected rather than to bureaucrats in central Government, or even, at that point, to the House of Commons. This House will give the people of the regions the opportunity to choose. If other regions do not want to do as I hope mine will, that is their choice, although I think that regions throughout England will be making a mistake if they do not opt for regional government.

Hugo Swire: Does the hon. Gentleman feel that regions that do not want to follow his line should be compensated for not choosing regional government, which would result in extremely costly local government reorganisation and the establishment of regional assemblies?

Tony Lloyd: Applying the same logic, if it is demonstrated that, by choosing regional government and establishing efficient unitary authorities and a regional assembly, my region saves money, will the hon. Gentleman be prepared to say to his voters that on the basis of those savings, money should be transferred to the north-west from other regions? If we are prepared to look at the total deal, his point may be interesting.
	The issue here is that the choice will be made by the people of the different regions, and the hon. Gentleman tempts me to turn to important regional matters. Over the years, the northern regions have suffered in the allocation of local government funding, which has advantaged the south-east and, in particular, London. That would have to be considered in the context of a new constitutional formula.
	Even more importantly, the Barnett formula will inevitably raise its head. It will do so whether or not we choose regional government, but if we are to examine the viability of new regions in the north-west and north-east, parity of funding will become important. Looking at all the indicators, we see that the north-west has many advantages, and I have enormous confidence that, liberated from its present constraints, it will be able to fast-forward to a better future. However, it is undeniable that many areas of the region have been as profoundly affected by poverty, deprivation and de-industrialisation as Scotland, where the Barnett formula is applied advantageously.
	I know that this will be an uncomfortable issue for the Government, but I want to state that although setting up a north-west region is important, we will want to consider parity and fairness of funding within any new regional settlement. In the final analysis, we will want a successful north-west region to make further constitutional reforms so that its powers grow as it demonstrates its ability to use them.

Edward Davey: The hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) made a passionate and powerful case for regional government and elected regional assemblies. He will not be surprised to hear that Liberal Democrat Members agree with him. My party and our predecessor parties going back to Gladstone have long argued for devolution, and in manifesto after manifesto we have argued for elected regional assemblies, so we will support the Bill tonight. It is right that Britain's existing form of regional government is made accountable to the people.
	Our vision of regional government is very different from the Deputy Prime Minister's, however. We have two main criticisms of the Bill, which we shall make tonight and as the Bill proceeds through the House. First, we need more regional devolution than is on offer in the Bill and the White Paper linked to it. Secondly, the Bill does not offer the best way of making preparations for regional assemblies, and I am afraid that it may turn out to kill the idea of regional assemblies. Too often, we see No. 10's hand imprint on the Bill. It is not keen on elected regional assemblies. The Deputy Prime Minister has fought long and hard for his achievements, but I know that he believes in his heart of hearts that this measure should go much further.
	Regional democracy, for which the Deputy Prime Minister has made a case, is the reason why we shall vote for the Bill. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) did not spend much time talking about democracy, which is at the heart of the Bill and its proposals, but it is a key argument. In both this and the last Parliament we have advocated constitutional reform, in which there has been a great experiment—not least in the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and so on. The Bill is linked to that experiment, and tries to get decisions closer to the people, which we support.
	The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden failed to say whether or not the Conservatives are happy with the current state of regional government. We have far too much regional government. If one starts to add up all the quangos, one loses count very soon. It is difficult to keep track of all the different Government offices and quangos in the regions. I have looked for myself, and tried to read the Government document. It is difficult to keep track of numbers. Some national quangos, such as the Environment Agency, have regional offices. There are regional quangos such as regional development agencies. Some central Government agencies, such as the Highways Agency, have regional offices. Some central Government programmes have local or regional aspects, and some local organisations have regional aspects. It is a complete maze, and the key thing is that it is not democratic.
	Those organisations, quangos and Government offices are non-elected bodies and exercise wide-ranging powers in policy areas including education, health, economic development, the environment, transport, culture and sport. Why are the Conservatives against giving democracy to our regional government? If you start trying to count those quangos, a key problem is trying to define a quango and what fits neatly into elected regional government—one person's quango is another person's ministerial fiefdom. Often, boundaries are not coterminous, so it is difficult to offer precise definitions. I am grateful to Councillor Chris Foote-Wood, who tried to count the quangos in north-east England. Earlier this year, he published a pamphlet called XLand of the 100 Quangos". He used evidence published by the Deputy Prime Minister in November 2001, which found 12 regional strategies in the north-east and 70 regional and sub-regional quangos. Councillor Foote-Wood has managed to find a few more. The Deputy Prime Minister may be interested in them.
	Councillor Foote-Wood entitled his pamphlet XLand of the 100 Quangos", but he found 172 regional and sub-regional quangos. I am tempted to list every single one, but I am sure that you would rule me out of order if I did, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Departments that operate quangos in the north-east include the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which has the north-east regional office of the Community Fund and Culture North East. There are six health authorities in the north-east region and 17 NHS trusts. The former Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions had the north rent assessment panel and the north-eastern traffic area authority. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has 71 Government office north-east partnerships, including the XDon't Choke Britain" north-east planning group and the north-east centre for change steering group—I am not quite sure what that does—the northern arts advisers panel, the regional foresight steering committee, the regional round table on sustainable development and so on. Those bodies are not democratic.

Philip Hammond: And nor will they be.

Edward Davey: The hon. Gentleman says that under the Government's proposals, those bodies will not become democratic. That is part of the problem with the proposals: the Government need to go much further to reduce the quango state. But the hon. Gentleman should be careful—it was his party that set up large tracts of the quango state. It was disappointing that we did not hear the Conservative spokesman arguing the case for democracy.
	There is another key argument in principle for elected regional assemblies, and it concerns efficiency. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden argued that if the new organisations were set up, they would create more bureaucracy. If one starts looking at the quango state, one sees bureaucracy writ large. The quangos are chaotic, having been up by Government after Government and Minister after Minister, with no co-ordination among them at all. The quangos duplicate each other's bureaucracies and are ineffective because there are so many of them. When one adds up the expense of setting them up, their offices, their management boards, their non-executive directors, their staff, their pension funds and so on, the cost is huge. There can be no doubt that democratising and rationalising the position under regional assemblies makes huge financial sense.

Robert Syms: The hon. Gentleman knows that even if we have regional assemblies, there will still be a tier of quangos, which will simply report to Bristol or Exeter rather than London. That will not improve the situation.

Edward Davey: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. Many of those organisations could become part of the regional assembly, just as Government Departments and agencies are answerable to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of State is answerable to the House. We can de-quangoise Britain's polity through the process.
	The Conservatives often speak—rightly—about accountability. The point of elected regional assemblies is to make those bodies accountable and to use accountability to drive through value for money. I have been disappointed by some of the ways in which the House tries to hold the Government to account on financial matters. We have almost no ex-ante scrutiny of the Budget. We have three days on the estimates, during which we do not actually debate them—something I have always found rather odd. We do better on ex-post scrutiny, but even our audit processes in the House leave a lot to be desired.
	Part of the problem is that across the whole United Kingdom the public sector is too large for Whitehall and Parliament to get to grips with it. If we make sure that elected regional assemblies and the members who serve in them have real powers to scrutinise the way in which the money is spent and to make sure that there is proper audit and accountability, we can get much better value for money for the taxpayer.
	There is another way in which elected regional assemblies could promote efficiency. In their fullest form, they are about better policy delivery. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches see the assemblies as key to deep, meaningful reform of the public services. At our recent conference we passed a document that envisaged many aspects of the public services being run and funded by regional assemblies. I shall come to that in due course.
	The Government's proposals for the key policy area for elected regional assemblies relate to economic development. Although I have some problems with their proposals, the Government are right to see assemblies as key to promoting economic development in the regions. I say that as a London MP. One of our problems is that the capital is overheating. In Scotland and Wales, devolution has acted as an economic spur. It has led to development, and to organisations getting better advice and working more closely together. Devolution to the English regions could be part of the solution to London's overheating problem—obviously, only part of it, but hopefully it could ensure that there is more managed economic development across the country.

Peter Atkinson: I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would clarify what he just said. Is he proposing that there should be a recession in London? I am sure that that would go down well with his electorate and others. What is happening with the London assembly and Ken Livingstone is that he is damaging London, not helping it.

Edward Davey: I agree with the hon. Gentleman about Mr. Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London. I am no supporter of his strategies. However, if people reread my remarks, they will not take from them the meaning that the hon. Gentleman took. We have a huge problem in London. The population forecasts, even adjusted for the latest census figures, will pose a huge challenge for public sector investment in our infrastructure and our public services. I hope that as the London economy goes from strength to strength, it will be able to meet some of that. We must rise to the challenge. I believe that Londoners support the idea of spreading economic prosperity across the country. Let us not forget that many Londoners come from the regions and the nations of the British Isles, and they support devolution and economic prosperity in their home regions.

Iain Luke: With regard to Scottish devolution, does the hon. Gentleman accept that Edinburgh is becoming overheated? The real issue for regional government in England and devolution in Scotland is the decentralisation of the civil service, to allow the refocusing of the civil service from London and Edinburgh to the regions of England and the various areas of Scotland.

Edward Davey: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. He made my point rather more eloquently than I managed to.
	Although we agree with elected regional assemblies and will support the Bill, I want to make it clear to the Deputy Prime Minister that his version of elected regional assemblies is rather weak and timid. For a start, the Government's vision is far too centralist. They want to keep far too much power for Whitehall and Westminster. They are giving away far too few powers and dismantling far too few quangos. They are putting planning up to regional chambers, even before those regional chambers are accountable to anyone or are elected. That is a bizarre way of going on. As power is given away, it is already gradually being brought back: the Government are proposing centrally imposed targets—public service agreement regimes and so on. That is not devolution. If they intend to trust the people, they should not trust them a little; they should trust them fully. I do not understand why the Government are so timid.
	When we examine the details of the White Paper and the powers that regional assemblies will have, we begin to see how the Government sometimes speak with forked tongue. On page 39 of the White Paper, in the section on economic development, under the heading XTraining and skills", the Government proudly state:
	XDeveloping the skills of the workforce plays a vital role in economic development. So improving the skills base and equipping people to take up the opportunities being created in a region will be an important component of delivering an elected assembly's objectives."
	From such a ringing declaration, we think that we are about to see numerous powers relating to training and skills being devolved to regional assemblies—but no. Further down, we read:
	XSpecifically this will mean that . . . the national LSC"—
	that is, Learning and Skills Council—
	Xwill be under a statutory duty to consult assemblies on its guidance to the local LSCs"
	and that
	Xlocal LSCs will be obliged to have regard to assembly strategies".
	There is no control over learning and skills councils or over the policy that is going to elected regional assemblies. It is all right for them to be consulted, but that is froth. It is meaningless. They ought to have control. The national Learning and Skills Council should be abolished and real power over an important aspect of economic development given to the regional assemblies.
	A similar problem arises in respect of transport. The White Paper proudly states:
	XGood transport is essential for sustainable economic success . . . To achieve this, transport needs to be integrated with policy on economic development, planning and housing.
	Elected regional assemblies will be responsible for a regional transport strategy".
	What does that mean? It means responsibility for advising central Government on the allocation of funds. We in the House and people outside advise the Government about the spending of money, so elected regional assemblies do not seem to have many responsibilities in that regard.

Alan Beith: I can give my hon. Friend a vivid illustration. On the Scottish side of the border, the Scottish Executive can decide whether to concentrate resources on dualling the A1. On the English side of the border, London is still answerable for that decision and it will not be in the region's power to make it. Surely, that is one of the ways in which the regional institution needs to be strengthened.

Edward Davey: That is a very vivid example. I know that my right hon. Friend has campaigned on that issue for some time and must be very disappointed about the lack of powers specified in the Government's proposals.

Andrew Lansley: We must not understate the Government's proposals. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has noticed that page 45 of the White Paper sets out an indicative expenditure budget for the regional assembly in the north-east. It has a transport budget in the form of £1 million for the rail passenger partnership. Given the importance of transport in regional economic development for the north-east, that is an indication of how little influence an assembly would have over the major issues.

Edward Davey: The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point very well. The problem that the Government will have when people are being asked to vote on the regional assemblies is that when they read the White Paper, they will see the lack of powers that are being given to them. Many people who would usually be huge advocates of regional devolution will say, XThis is not what we wanted or asked for." They might vote no and some will certainly abstain. The Government are shooting themselves in the foot.
	That returns me to one of my original remarks. It may be a little unfair to the Deputy Prime Minister to say so, but I think that he has lost the argument in the Cabinet and that the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have overruled real devolution because they are scared of it. We have therefore been given paper tiger elected regional assemblies. Yes, we may be able to build on them in future, but they are not impressive and certainly do not live up to the rhetoric.

Norman Baker: Does my hon. Friend accept that, if assemblies are to work, as I hope they will, people must feel affinity with the regions in which they are placed? The south-east is a huge economic engine encircling London. Does my hon. Friend accept that there is a case for splitting it into two so that people feel affinity with their areas? People in Lewes feel no affinity with Milton Keynes.

Edward Davey: There is a very strong argument for such an approach, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I shall deal later with the fact that one of the problems of the Government's proposals is that they have taken the boundaries from the Office for National Statistics and indeed from the Conservatives, and set them in stone for no obvious reason.
	The Liberal Democrats believe that one of the biggest holes in the plethora of powers that are not going to the regional assemblies is the fact that national health service responsibilities are not being devolved. Looking around the regions, it is the NHS that has the largest number of quangos and bodies without any regional representation. At a time when we are having so many problems in trying to run the NHS from the centre and to micro-manage an organisation with so many employees and other organisations inside it, surely we should start learning from experience in other countries. Countries such as Canada and countries as small as Denmark have devolved their health services to their regions and below, trusting the people so that those in the lower tiers of government run their whole health systems. Unsurprisingly, places such as Canada and Denmark have much better health systems as a result and people are far more satisfied with them than with the NHS.

Gordon Prentice: If the NHS were to be balkanised in that way, would there not be regional differences in the standard of health care? Would the Liberal Democrats embrace such differences?

Edward Davey: I am very interested in the hon. Gentleman's comment. He clearly thinks that, after almost 60 years of the NHS, complete uniformity has been achieved and everyone gets exactly the same service. Of course, they do not get such a service and that is a nonsensical argument.
	The importance of devolution is that it would allow local people choice to set their own priorities in their regions. As we believe that tax-raising powers should accompany devolution of powers over the NHS, we also think that people should decide how much they want to spend on it. That is a major hole in the provisions and a major difference between our approach to regional devolution and the Government's.

Graham Brady: The hon. Gentleman confirms that the Liberal Democrats want regional government to be able to raise taxes. Does he see that as unlimited tax-raising power or would he cap it?

Edward Davey: In the early stages of elected regional assemblies, there would be limits on that power. However, we believe that in due course—the hon. Gentleman will like this answer—they should be free to raise taxes as they choose, although they will be accountable to the people and the decision will be a democratic one taken by the people in the area. Again, I wonder why the Tories are so against democracy.
	I should like to turn now to the details of the Bill and deal with why it is flawed and why the Liberal Democrats will table many amendments in Committee. Besides the powers outlined in the White Paper, no details on powers have been published for people to see before the first referendum, so they will be asked to answer a question without knowing all the full facts. That cannot be sensible. Okay, the Minister may say that that happened in Wales and Scotland, but it created many problems for those campaigning for devolution. The Welsh vote was almost lost. I am not saying that that was due only to the factor that I have mentioned, but I am sure that it had some impact. The Government are shooting themselves in the foot by not being clearer about the powers before the first referendum takes place.
	Will the Minister for Local Government and the Regions and the Deputy Prime Minister publish a draft Bill? If the Government are not prepared to legislate before the first referendum, why do they not put a draft Bill before the House? We could then at least give the measures some pre-legislative scrutiny and the voters in the referendum would have a clearer idea of exactly what powers the Government were talking about.
	Possibly the worst aspect of the Bill is the fact that the Government are confusing voting for an elected regional assembly with local government reform. I do not understand—I do not think the voters will either—why the Government have put those two issues together. They should be decoupled. If the Government are right and this is a case of XYour Region, Your Choice," surely it could also be a case of XYour council, your choice." People should be given a chance to vote on the issue, but the Government are not making such a proposal. The reason why they are not doing so is that they are running scared—the Deputy Prime Minister almost admitted it—of criticism that there might be more than three tiers of government. In many other countries, there are more than three tiers of government and that means that there is a bit more democracy. Perhaps if people were given the chance to vote against that and to vote for unitary structures that were separate from regional assemblies, they would choose to do so. That is their right, but surely such an approach is the more democratic and grown-up way of going about it. I should be interested to know whether, in trying to find out whether there is any great interest in holding a referendum for an elected regional assembly, the Minister will bother to find out whether there is any interest in local government restructuring.

Adrian Flook: The hon. Gentleman spoke earlier about efficiency, but he is now talking about maintaining district councils and county councils while allowing the establishment of regional assemblies. Where does efficiency come in?

Edward Davey: The hon. Gentleman will also remember that I spoke about democracy, which is very important. There is always a trade-off between democracy and efficiency. I am sure that a country could have a very efficient form of government under a dictatorship. I am sure that Pinochet thought that his civil service was working terribly well when he centralised all the powers. There is a trade-off and I find it odd that the hon. Gentleman does not want to give his constituents or voters in various other regions the chance to vote on that issue.

Parmjit Dhanda: It is interesting that the Liberal Democrats are talking about introducing some form of local income tax and a tax-raising power for the regional assemblies. Are they also talking about introducing a third income tax if people do not opt for a unitary structure but choose a district, county and regional structure—a sort of Lib Dem triple whammy?

Edward Davey: As the hon. Gentleman ought to know, council tax already does that. He fails to understand that the issue is about democratic choice. I think that cutting national taxes and giving power to raise them at a local and regional level is a sensible way forward.
	One of the other problems with the Bill is that no boundary review was conducted before its introduction. As I said in response to an earlier intervention, we have inherited the regional boundaries from the Conservatives. I do not think that it is to the Government's credit that they have merely said, XMe too," in respect of the boundaries. They could have instituted a one-year, one-off review to find out what people in the regions felt were the right boundaries. It is a great shame that they have not done so.

Matthew Green: There is time.

Edward Davey: Indeed, there is time if the Government get their act together. I wanted to raise one or two issues that we shall doubtless debate in detail in Committee, but I shall focus on only one before I conclude my remarks. I want to consider the ballot paper and the question. The Electoral Commission ruled that the preamble was not sufficiently clear, and the Deputy Prime Minister said that that would be taken into account.
	When we debated the Greater London Authority Bill, the Minister for Local Government and the Regions said that the relevant question had been determined through focus group research. What research has been conducted into the question for which the Bill provides? Have people in the focus groups told the Government whether they understand that the proposed question implicitly refers to local government reform? I am surprised that the Electoral Commission did not rule that the question was unintelligible. Although it did not, hon. Members should complain about it because it is unclear and does not tell people for what they are voting.
	We welcome the Bill. Regional government and democracy should have been introduced many years ago. We have wasted years and millions of pounds on the quango state. The Government are therefore right to introduce the Bill.

John Pugh: My hon. Friend eloquently described the Bill as a paper tiger. Liberal Democrats can support the Bill only on the assumption that it will turn out to be a Trojan horse and lead to something more.

Edward Davey: My hon. Friend is right that we shall try to strengthen the Government's proposals in the Bill and in the accompanying enabling legislation. I am looking forward to debating with the Minister. We spent three months in Committee on the Greater London Authority Bill, which we amended more times than the India Act. I warn him that we shall table many amendments.

Gordon Prentice: The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) made a long speech. I can present my position more crisply—I shall not need 12 minutes.
	I do not believe that regional assemblies will happen. We will not persuade people in the regions that another tier of government will deliver measurable improvements to their lives. I am therefore a sceptic. I believe that the Government are introducing the Bill because we have always had an asymmetrical constitution and some people want to make the United Kingdom symmetrical. In Northern Ireland, we have a devolved institution with specific legislative powers. In Wales, we created a halfway house hybrid, which has no primary legislative powers. In Scotland, we have a new devolved Administration. For reasons of symmetry, we need to impose regional devolution in England.
	The proposal constitutes a halfway house. If the Labour party believes in a symmetrical constitution, it should go the whole hog and federalise the United Kingdom. That is the canoe that the Liberal Democrats, who are great federalists, paddle. However, my Government claim that we can satisfy aspirations by introducing the regional devolution for which the Bill provides.
	I oppose such devolution. As I said in an earlier intervention about the national health service, I believe in a strong central state that irons out imbalances between the regions, considers their needs and contributes resources to the neediest areas. I do not support a fractured, dismembered United Kingdom, where regional differences are magnified. Liberal Democrats would celebrate such differences, even in the crucial matter of health. They said that there would no longer be a national health service but a regional service, with regional postcode lotteries. What a ridiculous idea.

Matthew Green: The hon. Gentleman may have noticed that the closure of the accident and emergency department at Kidderminster hospital was a big issue in the midlands during the last election campaign. It resulted in the domination of Wyre Forest district council by a party called Health Concern, which also holds the balance of power on Worcestershire county council. It was instrumental in the election of the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Dr. Taylor), who has one of the biggest majorities in the House, and it is probably one of the reasons for my presence here. However, none of that could change a decision that was made in London. There was no local accountability. How does the hon. Gentleman propose to make any such changes without regional government?

Gordon Prentice: I understand the point. A national health service should mean simply that. Perhaps that is an aspiration, but I hold to it and so should the Labour party. I support common standards in so far as they are possible throughout the United Kingdom.

Matthew Green: Tell that to the people of Wyre Forest. They have no accident and emergency department.

Gordon Prentice: The hon. Gentleman should discuss the matter with the district council. I have made the point as clearly as I can.
	The White Paper includes innumerable references to regional assemblies Xplanning", Xdrawing up strategies" and Xtargets". People in north-east Lancashire are not interested in that. We have the worst housing in the United Kingdom and we do not need a new assembly to tell us to plan and form strategies to deal with it. We need money from a central Labour Government to knock down crummy, crumbling housing. That would do more to transform the lives of my constituents in Pendle than setting up a regional assembly in, for example, Lancaster or Wigan.
	I have pressed the Deputy Prime Minister on several occasions about why the Government will not come off the fence. If they believe that regionalising England is a good idea, why do not they advocate regional assemblies positively? They did that for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and in London. It is as plain as a pikestaff that the Government are not telling Labour Members of Parliament and members of the party outside the House that we must campaign for English regional devolution, because the Prime Minister does not believe in it. I shall tell him that when I meet him tomorrow. I have never heard him publicly advocating English regional devolution. However, the Deputy Prime Minister has been wedded to it for his whole political life. We are therefore in our current position.
	Many phoney claims have been made for regional assemblies. A colleague in my area said that a regional assembly would mean no more problems with the west coast main line. That is like saying that a south-east regional assembly on its own could finance a channel tunnel rail link. That is ludicrous. People are making claims that regional assemblies cannot effect without extra help from central Government, but it is not forthcoming. How do I know that? Page 45 of the White Paper makes it clear that regions that do not opt for an assembly would not be disadvantaged. People who believe that voting for a regional assembly in the north-west or the north-east will mean barrels of money are dreaming.
	We must be honest with people and not dress up the proposal as something that it is not.

Alan Beith: I am just a bit worried that the hon. Gentleman will go to his meeting with the Prime Minister tomorrow in ignorance of the Prime Minister's words on the opening page of the very White Paper that he is quoting from. The Prime Minister says that the Government's proposal
	Xbuilds on the success of devolution elsewhere in the UK—offering people more accountable, more streamlined, and more joined-up government."

Gordon Prentice: The Prime Minister did not write that, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows.

Alan Beith: He has signed it.

Gordon Prentice: The right hon. Gentleman has been around for a long time. To imagine that the Prime Minister's own hand signs off all these documents—what fantasy! What a Liberal Democrat statement that was!
	In the few moments that are left to me, I want to draw the attention of the House to one or two other things that have been troubling me. [Interruption.] Yes, there are many such things, but it is great to be able to unburden myself of them. It is very therapeutic. On the cost of the proposals, we have just gone through a major local government reorganisation, and we were promised that it would save—no pun intended—an arm and a leg. It has not. Our whole experience of local government reorganisation tells us that it always costs much more than people imagine.
	The Library paper, which has been very helpful, tells us that the Heseltine review of local government in the early 1990s cost £669 million, and that involved only a partial reform. Looking at the legislation proposed by my own Government, I shiver when I think about all the residuary bodies and staffing commissions that will have to be set up. It is going to cost an absolute fortune. The police authorities might have to be reconfigured as well, because they are linked to the counties. The cost could spiral out of control. The Library paper also talks about the cost of devolution to Scotland, Wales and London, which is now estimated to have been between 25 and 40 per cent. higher than anticipated. Case made.

Hilton Dawson: My hon. Friend has been one of the most trenchant critics of Lancashire county council over its recent policy on services for older people. Is it not therefore absolutely essential, and in the best interest of his constituents, that we get a much more devolved form of local government that is able to integrate fully with health and social care, and with private and voluntary sector providers?

Gordon Prentice: It would not be much of a local government if we got rid of the county tiers in the north-west and brought in a new assembly with a membership of between 25 and 35. Even if we take the upper figure, each assembly person would have a constituency of something like 240,000 people. That is not very local. In so far as there are problems with Lancashire county council, those problems have been identified by the voters. The voters therefore have the remedy in their own hands, if they wish to use it.
	On resources, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) spoke earlier about the injustices and inequities of the Barnett formula. But we have had a Labour Government for six years. If the Barnett formula is so iniquitous—and I think it is—why do not my own Government do something about it? They could do something about it tomorrow—literally. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer comes to the House, he could announce a review of the formula that could put resources into regions such as mine which have lost out over the years.
	A lot of the people campaigning in my area keep banging on about European funds. A regional assembly in the north-west would have access to such funds. To put this into perspective, however, £200 million of European structural funding goes into the north-west, but the total Government spending in the north-west is £33.7 billion. So we are talking about something that is de minimis.
	Perhaps the answer is to strengthen our existing system of local government and to give MPs like me the opportunity to serve on a regional Select Committee. At present, we have a Regional Affairs Committee, which is supposed to have oversight of all the English regions. Why can we not introduce a system of regional Select Committees, so that MPs like me could meet in Lancaster, Wigan or Manchester—in public and televised—to bring the quangos that we keep hearing about to account? That is a question not for this Minister but for the Leader of the House and others.
	I shall vote for the Bill this evening. [Laughter.] I shall do so because I am seeing the Prime Minister tomorrow. He will know my views, and he will appreciate my candour in expressing them.

David Curry: I suppose that it is ironic that we have just heard two speeches from people who have said what a ghastly Bill this is, and then declared that they are going to vote for it. I, too, am going to say that it is a pretty ghastly Bill, but I am going to vote against it. In that sense, I shall be consistent and, perhaps, break with my recent seditious tradition as far as my relationship with my party is concerned.
	I would like to begin on a seditious note. There is actually a case for regional devolution, and it is silly to pretend that that case does not exist. There are two arguments in favour of regional devolution. One is that there is a serious problem with representative democracy in Britain today. We have passed power out of the hands of people who are accountable. To some extent, we have passed it upwards to international organisations, most of which I support. We have also passed it down, sometimes into the hands of the citizen—the school board member, the school governor—for very good reasons. We have also passed it down to a whole series of quangos, the most recent of which are the patient care trusts, which are very large organisations indeed. All the people to whom we have passed down that power have a responsibility to look after the members of their own organisation, but they are not enjoined by any accountability to the wider community. That is what I mean by a problem of representative democracy. The first test is: does the Bill deal with that problem?
	The second argument for regional devolution is that, at some stage, we have to address the problem of the government of England. I happen to be passionately opposed to the idea of an English Government. I can think of nothing more destructive for the United Kingdom than a wholly imbalanced power centred in an English Government, faced with the powers of the much smaller nationalities in the United Kingdom. Devolution to regions of the United Kingdom can provide an answer to this problem. Does the Bill fulfil that purpose?
	When I stack up this measure against those two possible needs, I have to ask myself: is this the answer—this mewling, puking, piddling, miserable little milk-and-water Bill? This is the sort of Bill that comes from people who put water in their red wine. It is barely worth having at all. If it is supposed to be a Trojan horse—made, I think, out of papier-mâché, if the analogy of the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) is going to be correct—I have to say that it is going to take an awfully long time to disgorge its hidden contents.

Austin Mitchell: The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly correct to say that this is a puny Bill, compared with what is necessary, but many forms of life start out mewling and puking. Even he did! Sometimes they grow up to be Conservative MPs. Why should not we give the Bill the right to live, to see how it develops?

David Curry: Because I had no choice but to begin life in that microscopic form. The Government do, however, have a choice about whether to begin with something more important. There is a choice in front of us, whereas my parents had no choice. There was only one way of begetting me. We may evolve in due course, but, for the moment, I am afraid that that is a restriction that is enjoined on both the hon. Gentleman and on me.
	What claims are made for the Bill? The first is that it will help with economic regeneration. I recall the debate on Second Reading of the Bill that introduced regional development agencies, when the Minister in charge, who is now, improbably, Minister for Sport, said that the Government would have failed if the measure did not narrow the differential among the regions. As those differentials are widening rapidly, I wait for them to draw that particular conclusion.
	Secondly, it is claimed that the Bill will help with accountability. Let us consider the problem of economic regeneration. I support economic regeneration and, perhaps unusually, I think that the Yorkshire Forward RDA has not done a bad job in Yorkshire and Humberside, but we should compare what it has with public spending in the region. Incidentally, part of the constituency of the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) used to be in North Yorkshire and a reunification movement aims to get it back, because, understandably, being in Lancashire is a bit of a comedown after being in Yorkshire. If we are to take such figures as an indicator, the funds available are puny.
	The hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) is no longer here, but he said that there is an enormous black hole at the heart of the Government's proposals—that is, there is no proposal whatever to redress the balance of public expenditure among the regions. So the dear old north-east of England, which is alleged to be the region that most wants regional government, will go in to bat against the Scots. The rationale, of course, is that it has to compete with the gravitational field of Edinburgh with puny per capita public expenditure compared with what the Scots enjoy.
	The Barnett formula has been mentioned, and it is inescapable that the regions will want more power and more money if we introduce regional devolution. I look forward to seeing the Minister for Local Government and the Regions sorting that one out. Indeed, I am tempted to campaign throughout the south-west in favour of devolution just to see him handle the local government reorganisation that would necessarily ensue if devolution were introduced there.

Lawrie Quinn: On the point about more power and more money, is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that Yorkshire would not want either of those?

David Curry: All I am saying is that we will not get them; people are not being offered that choice. Of course, anybody would want more power and more money. If we get a devolved assembly, the first thing it will do is engage in competition for public funds. That, inevitably, will happen.
	I always enjoy listening to the Deputy Prime Minister, as it is like having presented to one for Christmas a brand new thesaurus containing all sorts of meanings of words that one never dreamed existed. He said that the Bill will give the regions opportunities similar to those in Scotland and Wales, but either the word Xsimilar" has entirely changed its meaning or there is a curious elasticity in the language, which is no doubt particular. That is a reflection either on new Labour as a philosophy or on the hon. Gentleman as a grammarian. Perhaps a combination of those problems is involved.
	Let us consider what is being proposed on the question of accountability, and let me make my local point. North Yorkshire is the only part of Yorkshire and Humberside that does not have a unitary authority. If there is a vote on a regional assembly for Yorkshire and Humberside, 86 per cent. of those who determine local government reform in North Yorkshire will have nothing at stake as regards the change of structure.
	If we get regional government, I shall not be afraid of three tiers. I see no reason for North Yorkshire not to be given the choice, should it wish to keep the regional and county tiers, although it should not be able to retain all the others as well. That is a fallacy of logic in the Government's argument—the search for such uniformity is wholly unnecessary and I hope that the Minister backs off in Committee or we shall be overwhelmed.
	The assemblies are a terrible charade, and we should consider the electoral system and the size of the constituencies. The proposal is to abolish one tier of government—it may be good, bad or indifferent, but it at least represents a limited number of people—and to replace it with another that will represent over 250,000 people, topped up by proportional representation. If turnout in the European elections is an indicator of the success of that system of government, I must say that the Government are in for some rapid disillusionment.
	We should consider the powers in the Bill. I refer to the Local Government Chronicle—an estimable journal that pays me a modest sum to write for it each month. George Jones, professor of government at the London school of economics, and John Stewart, professor of local government at Birmingham university's Inlogov, have a regular column in which they have disembowelled the Bill. Under the headline XToothless Wonder", they point out all the issues on which a regional assembly will be able to
	Xadvise . . . make proposals . . . request . . . support".
	The only thing they will not be able to do is decide. The assemblies will be able to decide nothing. There will be nothing on which they can draw up a strategy and execute it. They will spend their time importuning others to do things. If that is a recipe for achieving a good turnout, I am astonished.
	When people go to the polls, they ask themselves, XWhat is at stake?" If the answer is nothing, they will not vote. The new system in London has not necessarily given us such astonishing confidence in the transformation of the quality of our public life—says he, having just applied for his congestion charge licence—that we should be confident about its roll-out, to use a word that the Government love, to the rest of the country.
	We must also consider the trigger: what will decide that there is to be a referendum? Are we to test the crowd as they come out of St. James's Park, the Stadium of Light or Tesco, or will the usual clutch of councillors, parsons and academics get together to say that the proposals are a good wheeze? In Committee, we need to be told on what basis that test will be undertaken, as it is important. The powers will rest entirely with the Secretary of State. It is all very well saying that the people will decide, but they will not decide whether they want a referendum. There will be lobbies, and the groups that bay the loudest will get the referendums, because, increasingly, that is how our society works.
	I am obliged to conclude, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If this is a new dawn, it is a misty, clammy, foggy, chilly November dawn with extremely limited visibility, not merely on the motorways, but on the side roads. The Bill seeks to address a genuine problem—the lack of representative accountability—but the way to do that, which, across the Chamber, we have been reluctant to use, is to give powers back to existing local government, consider the funding, trust people and give them a stake in their local government. We should see whether that will bring a renaissance in the process of accountability and representative democracy in Britain, which we have all conspired to remove and to which the Bill will bring no improvement whatever.

Graham Stringer: Everybody on the Labour Benches recognises that this country is massively over-centralised. That over-centralisation gives some cause and effect to the wealth, income and health disparities between the regions and the south-east and among the regions. Those problems should be solved, but we will not find the solution in the Bill, which, as previous speakers have said, is quite weak.
	I shall come to what should happen, but I must say first that I think the Government believe that the Bill is quite weak. They would be much stronger advocates for it if they were more open about the subjective tests that the Deputy Prime Minister will go through in deciding whether there is to be a referendum, and the Bill would be much clearer if it contained a definite threshold on democratic support. It would also be clearer, and may well get more support, if we were not on such a one-way street, as we often are with referendums. We are not told of the powers that will exist. Quite simply, the Government look shifty in making their case, as they will not tell us those things, or what is in the Deputy Prime Minister's mind or what support they consider appropriate to determining whether there should be a referendum on establishing a regional assembly.
	Elected regional assemblies and regional government are not the solution because they run counter to the grain of the history of this country, which is distinguished from its European counterparts by its demography, the history of its local government and its urban areas, towns and shire counties. We should be supporting those cities and making them work.
	It is always interesting to hear Conservative Members talk about how much power should be in the hands of local government, as they spent 18 years taking powers from it. They should be returned.

Hilton Dawson: If we truly went with the grain of history, Manchester would be part of the county of Lancashire, whose county town is Lancaster.

Graham Stringer: Three hundred years ago, Manchester was a small market town, but I am talking about its post-industrial position. Manchester has had local government for 150 years, so that is going with the grain.

David Borrow: Will my hon. Friend reflect on the Commonwealth games that were held in the City of Manchester stadium this summer? Many of us in the north-west outside Manchester felt that it was a regional event in that a sense of regional pride was very much evident. Does my hon. Friend accept that there is a sense of regional pride in the rest of the north-west outside Manchester?

Graham Stringer: I viewed the Commonwealth games as a national event. It had a lot of support throughout the country. There was a great deal of support locally, and I was grateful for that, but if my hon. Friend is asking whether there is a north-western identity, no I do not think there is. I think that there is a Merseyside-Liverpool identity and a Manchester-Preston-Lancashire identity, but I do not believe that there is a north-west identity. When I watched television in the 1960s, we were in the north. As Granada diminished in size and the structure of the BBC changed, we were suddenly in the north-west. The north-west is a relatively recent concept. The regions are an artificial construct. Manchester does not have close cultural or sporting ties with Leeds or Liverpool, but because they are tied by the M62, it is economically at least as close to Leeds as it is to Liverpool.
	My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister alluded to the fact that in 1993 the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) said which regions there would be when he launched the Government offices for the regions. I served on many of Labour's working parties examining regional government, and the one problem that we could never solve was where the boundaries should be, because there are no natural regions. Salisbury and Southampton, amalgamated in the same chamber of commerce, are in two completely different regions. There are no natural regions in this country, but the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal solved that problem.
	One of the more bizarre claims that is made for regional government is that decision making will be better. My experience—I am talking mainly about the north-west, but I do not believe that it would be different in the south-east—is that we will end up with lowest common denominator politics, especially given the democratic system that will be used.
	The greatest economic generator in the north-west is Manchester airport. It creates more jobs and brings more wealth to the area than anything else. When I was the director of Manchester airport and leader of Manchester city council, I was involved in the scheme to build a second runway at the airport. I went all over the region trying to get support, but because of local pride, especially on Merseyside which put in planning objections that were supported elsewhere in the north-west, we could not get it. I suspect that in regions where there is no natural majority we will get lowest common denominator politics. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) said that the university of Manchester institute of science and technology and Manchester university should be amalgamated, and I agree, but I am not convinced that that would come about more easily with regional government than under the current structures.

Gerry Steinberg: I cannot let my hon. Friend get away with saying that there are no natural regions. There is no doubt that the north-east of England is a natural region. We have our own culture, and we require a Bill such as this so that we can get on and make the decisions that need to be made in the north-east, instead of their being made in central London.

Graham Stringer: I bow to my hon. Friend's knowledge of the north-east, but I have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) give a completely different view of the nature of the north-east from that of my hon. Friend.

Peter Atkinson: Perhaps I could give the hon. Gentleman another view of the north-east. The right hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Mandelson) was right: people who live on the south side of the Tees believe that they come from North Yorkshire, and people in Cumbria would like to be part of the north-east.

Graham Stringer: Other hon. Members have referred to the voting system for the proposed regional assemblies. I cannot think of anything more likely to put people off voting than constituencies of a quarter of a million, a list of representatives whom they will probably never see and a system that in the north-west and possibly in other regions will almost guarantee a British National party representative on the regional assembly. We must think about that when we set up electoral systems. Our electoral system has kept extremist parties out of Parliament by fair means. It seems strange to set up a system for regional government that will give the BNP and other racist and extreme groups a platform.
	I said that one of the bizarre claims was that decision making would be clearer under a regional system. Another claim concerns the core issue of how we deal with regional disparities. It is claimed that regional assemblies and regional development agencies will be the drivers of economic performance. In the north-west, which I know best, the major economic regenerative budget is the single regeneration budget. Why did it drop by £100 million? That is a measure of the commitment to devolution at the centre. It dropped by that much because there was to be no increase in costs to the Government and some of the regions that were created had to have new budgets, so there was a transfer from those areas of need to areas that had not required those resources before because a regional structure was to be established. I do not believe that this measure will be a driver of change. There simply is not enough money.
	The amount of money in Scottish Enterprise and the similar body that deals with the Scottish islands is equivalent to that for three RDAs. Even if that money were put into those regional structures, I doubt whether they would relate to commerce and industry.
	I do not want to be completely negative about the Bill.

Eric Pickles: Is the hon. Gentleman intending to vote for it?

Graham Stringer: Of course I shall vote for it, if only to give people the opportunity to reject the idea. That is one of the good things about the Bill. The people whom I represent are looking forward to the measures promised in the Queen's Speech to deal with bad private landlords and terraced property. I would much prefer to be dealing with a measure that my constituents are desperate for, because their lives are being made miserable from hour to hour and day to day. That would have a direct impact.
	What would a real regional policy look like? We would recognise it because central Government would not allow the synchrotron at Daresbury to be moved to Oxford on the basis of poor reasons. We would recognise it because 80 per cent. of transport spending would not be directed at London as at present. That would make a real difference to the regions. We would recognise it if it got rid of the Barnett formula, and if the surplus of highly paid civil servants and others who do not need to be in London were dispersed to the regions. We would recognise a regional policy that made the London cost adjustment fairer. And we would recognise a real regional policy—a policy that took account of democracy, giving local democracy power as well as responsibility. That would mean ending the system whereby 80 per cent. of local government income is determined by central Government grant, and allowing local authorities to collect it directly in the form of taxes so that they could make real decisions on what happened in their communities.
	I am sad about the Bill. The House needs to get to grips with the problem of regional disparities—why we have them, why there is so much poverty in the regions and why gross domestic product per head is not as high as it is elsewhere—but I am afraid the Bill does not deal with that problem. It will not help anyone.

Richard Shepherd: I do not envy the Minister the job of piloting the Bill through Committee. He will have a really difficult time.
	My tutor at university, K.B.S. Smellie, wrote the then seminal textbook X100 Years of English Local Government". It was a fairly short book; but the Deputy Prime Minister has told us of years of neglect. We have had the Local Government Acts 1963, 1972, 1985 and 1992, as well as the Greater London Authority Act 1999. We have, in fact, experienced an extremely unsettling series of changes. It has been a case of for and against, round about and over the hill.
	I am puzzled by all this. The Deputy Prime Minister tries to elevate his plans to the status of a grand programme of constitutional reform; but, in truth, does it consist of any more than yet another reorganisation of local government, providing even fewer powers than those held by the existing institutions—some of which have endured for a very long time, and command considerable sentiment in our nation? I do not represent a county constituency, but the counties are among the oldest political units in western Europe. They have a remarkable history.

Hilton Dawson: I understand what the hon. Gentleman says about the history of counties, but are they not a form of local government that simply does not work any more? Should not some of their functions be devolved to a lower level, and are not others—connected with planning, transport and economic development—meaningful only at regional level?

Richard Shepherd: I was reflecting on the constant change that we have experienced over the past quarter of a century or so, and on whether it has established any of what the Governments involved wanted to initiate. This is what puzzles me. If the Bill represents no more than a stab at some form of local government reform, why does it not follow the normal statutory process? We do not need referendums; we have all the Acts that I mentioned earlier. Important arrangements, which in some measure are constitutions, have been established by a simple Act of Parliament. What Parliament made, it can unmake.
	The hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) said something that, in a sense, was very important. He wanted a strong central state because it could end what he saw as a disparity. The hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) said that he wanted the regions to be able to perform certain functions, but who can best do that? This is why new Labour is constantly denigrated. The House of Commons is the central institution in the land, and if we have a will it can return to the institutions of local government the powers that it historically gained. I am thinking of the history identified by K.B.S. Smellie—the gradual great municipal developments of the 19th century that brought about the life and standards of our people.

Lawrie Quinn: The hon. Gentleman has obviously spent much time studying these matters. He says that the House of Commons is the appropriate place to effect such scrutiny. I agree with him, but, as a member of the Standing Committee on Regional Affairs for England, may I ask him how effective that Committee has been in scrutinising the matters that he says we should be scrutinising?

Richard Shepherd: If the hon. Gentleman really wants to know, I think it is an absurdity. The Modernisation Committee looked at it. The Government do not want it. I do not know what it is about. But it could be given life if the House had a will.
	The ability to make settlements and adjustments, and to revitalise local government, lies in our hands. There is a great hunger out there among the existing local authorities, whose members ask what is their purpose. There has been a regional attempt at a constitutional convention, whose research papers have identified important findings. Other Members may cite their own areas, but I can say that the west midlands—whatever they may be—receive £1,000 per head less than Scotland. That central point was made, in part, by the hon. Member for Pendle.
	I know as well as the Minister that the west midlands have not a chance in hell of suddenly having £5 billion or so cast in their direction. What is being set up is fanciful and, in a sense, phoney. Do people want it? The Deputy Prime Minister speaks of democracy, but it lies in his hands to determine whether there is a local interest and whether the vote will be for or against.
	I can conjure up any number of possible tests. Two people wrote to the Deputy Prime Minister, and on that basis he knows there is a groundswell. Well, the tests cannot be quite as fanciful as that. We in the west midlands had always assumed that we did not want this, until the BBC commissioned a poll. Apparently, not one region in England and Wales does not want regional government, and in the west midlands the figure is no less than 73 per cent. On that basis, the Deputy Prime Minister should be signing the documents that will bring about a referendum almost immediately.
	Once the Deputy Prime Minister has his referendum, what is the test? There is no test. We do not believe in thresholds any more. I understand why new Labour does not believe in them: it would not have secured any of its supposed constitutional changes with them. There was once a body corporate. Something that affected one part of this island affected us all. The flow of money to Scotland affects the flow of money to Cornwall and Wales; no one can doubt that. There is only one pot, and it is we who give legitimacy to the system. The regional authorities that are envisaged will not raise the money to support the ambitions that are dangled before the people of this country.
	I reflect on what we have experienced already. As I observed to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr. Davis), when a free people have been asked whether they want change, in no case has the figure been anywhere near 50 per cent. except in Scotland, where it was just under 50 per cent. Does that demonstrate a real will? Are we not just creating yet another political class?
	Huge costs will be involved. People should realise that. What about the ambitions of Wales? Is it to have an overarching county council? If only 25.2 per cent. voted for change in Wales, where a free people were urged to go out and express their will for change, that means that 74.8 per cent. did not want change. It is on such a slender basis that the Government trumpet that this is what Wales wants. Never has a minority of votes cast among the electorate been construed as an authority for the introduction of change.
	Why do I say that? Let us consider the rules of any club. I know of no club in my constituency that would permit fundamental rule changes on the basis that one in four members wanted them. The Government have put no threshold in the Bill, which is why they could not secure—as the hon. Member for Pendle said—their ambitions for one important, powerful Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, in respect of this nonsense.
	The Liberal Democrats say that they want regional government, but it is currently incoherent. Scotland is different from Wales, which in turn is different from other areas. This was once a symmetrical country; to that extent, I disagree with the hon. Member for Pendle. What was so for a man or woman in Cumbria was so for us in what was once Staffordshire. Aldridge-Brownhills never wanted to be in Walsall. It is a nightmare. Such misalliances are repeated across the country. The Government are dedicated to casting those misalliances of arrangements against the grain, so to speak. We have to forget our history to accept measures such as this.

Austin Mitchell: I want to try to redress the balance in the debate, which has been far too dominated by Lancastrians and by quibblers arguing against what could and, I hope, will be the basis of a very good and necessary decentralisation in this country. It is a small step to what has been a lifetime's ambition of mine: to have greater decentralisation, and to give more power to the regions and to the people where they live, interact and function in a modern society.
	I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. He has fought for that over the years in the Labour party against a good deal of opposition and now he is fighting for it in government. When we get these regional assemblies—and, I hope, eventually regional governments based on them—it will be his monument in modern Britain.
	I have to make a confession: I started on this journey believing in home rule for Yorkshire. It is a simple proposition. When I became MP for Great Grimsby, I included Humberside in that rubric, otherwise I would have been executed. There is no love lost between Tykes and Grimbarians.
	It seemed that Yorkshire had had a bum deal from the nation. It was said of President Hoover that in four years he drained, damned and ditched the United States and it seemed that London had done the same with Yorkshire and the great industrial regions of the north that created this modern society. I wanted to give Yorkshire the ability to fight back and control its own destiny.
	Like the Deputy Prime Minister, we all get more moderate as we get older. I duly resiled from that enthusiasm for home rule, but I still believe in the basic principle of the Bill, which is bringing government closer to the people. It is creating not a new level of bureaucracy but a new level of democracy. We already have regional institutions and they are not accountable; a long list of them has been given in the debate. The Bill is dedicated to making them accountable to the people in that region. As I said, it is a first step to regional government. Why do we need it? This country is manifestly over-centralised. It is more dominated and controlled by central Government than any other society I know. Even France, where Paris is supposedly dominant, has gone in for regionalism and decentralisation on a scale that we have not thought of in this country.
	All career ladders seem to finish in London. Most of the best and brightest sixth formers in my children's school in Grimsby have gone to London. Industries in the north have been damaged, or ruined in many cases by economic policies dictated by London. Even now it is going on. London house prices are rocketing, so the rest of the country has to bear higher interest rates than are appropriate to a manufacturing area. London is dominant.
	Local government has been shackled by London. The greatest skill in local government now is to transport begging bowls up and down the railways to London or, increasingly, to Brussels. No wonder we complain that local government does not attract ability: its basic job is the handing round of begging bowls. The media are dominated from London. House prices are dominated from London. Think of the kind of wealth that will be inherited in London when the houses are sold and people go to live in Grimsby more economically with a great bonus. People from Grimsby cannot go the opposite way.
	Devolution and the Bill are about taking power back to the people to help them to get a better deal and not to be dependent—to get them off their knees. In this nation, there should not be a political class as a dominant group in London, with the rest living on handouts and increasingly dependent on London. People should be equal and have the same power over their destinies everywhere.
	Complaints have been made about the direction of public spending. Yorkshire and Humberside gets £926 a head less a year than Scotland gets for devolved services, and £850 less a head a year than London.
	We need regional government not only to give people the power to fight back but because we now live regionally: regions are the basis of life now. As my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Lawrie Quinn) said, they are the basis of identity in the north-east, the Geordie nation. It is not as good as in Yorkshire. Perhaps we are more xenophobic, although that is now a crime in Europe and Yorkshire, but there is a feeling of pride and identity.
	Look too at travel to work. My dad used to walk down the road to the mill but now people travel considerable distances. The M62, which I use a lot, is choked with people travelling to work from east and west Yorkshire to Leeds, or they take the M1 to Sheffield. Those motorways are imposing a new pattern of life based on regions, a new scale in people's thinking.
	Our culture is becoming increasingly regional. People go to the West Yorkshire playhouse, the Crucible in Sheffield, the theatre in Hull. We have Opera North in Leeds and the Northern Ballet. All those are regional cultural institutions. Even the multiplex cinemas serve bigger regions than the locality. There are great regional shopping centres such as Meadow Hall, the Metro Centre or Trafford Park, which is the newest and best; I am afraid to say that as a Yorkshireman. They have given a new focus to economic activity.
	Most organisations have regional structures. The TUC, the CBI, the parties and sport are all run regionally. I am glad to say that, since 1997, we have had a proliferation of regional bodies, for which we need to provide coherence through measures such as this. The problems include planning, development and promoting the region. There are important institutions such as Manchester airport. Transport and housing need to be treated regionally and on a regional scale; those problems are regional rather than strictly local.
	We need accountable institutions to deal with all that. The way to make them accountable is to have regional assemblies and eventually a regional government. I welcome the measure because it transfers power to our people where they live, and the people want it. Much has been said about the BBC poll, but it showed strong support for regions, particularly in the north-east, the north-west, Yorkshire and the west midlands, which is also pushing for regional government.
	The Economist poll in April 1999 asked people what they most identified with. Forty-four per cent. said local government but 49 per cent. said the region and only 41 per cent. said England: more people identify with the region than with the country. We must have regional institutions, or the constitution would be unstable. We have devolution for Scotland and for Wales. Why should England be treated as one great lump? We cannot have an English parliament—it would be an elephant in a cuckoo's nest—so we have to have regions developing towards equality of status and power. The Conservatives are against it, but then they are against all change until it actually happens. It reminds me of the old definition in the 1950s, when it was said that the Republicans believed that nothing should be done for the first time, but the new Republicans believed that it should be done, but not now.
	That is precisely the Conservative position on regional government, as it was on devolution to Wales and on regional development agencies. They accept the regional institutions that are already running. The regional assemblies—the re-named chambers of the development agencies—have many Conservatives on them: the south-east assembly has 34, dominating it; east of England, 13; south-west, 20; and west midlands, 23. They are using regional institutions, and no doubt they will play their part on the new bodies.
	Why not let the people decide, as the Bill does? It is true that the south is less enthusiastic than the north, but we could have variable geometry institutions, as in Spain, where the system works very well, with regions choosing how many powers they want, some taking a lot and some having only minimal powers. That is a perfectly feasible future for us.
	The ballot should certainly say Xdirectly elected", because we already have elected assemblies, in the sense that many of the councillors on the existing regional assemblies are elected. The suggested preamble for the ballot is far too long. It is incomprehensible, and people would die of boredom by the time they got to the end of it.
	The Liberals argued for including abolition of the counties in the requirement for regional government. I know that the Tories wax lyrical about the counties as traditional institutions, although they waxed slightly less lyrical when they abolished the metropolitan counties. They abolished Humberside for party political reasons, because Labour was in power there, and—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's time is up.

Teddy Taylor: The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) will be very disappointed if regional government ever happens, because his idea that there will be some kind of new exciting democracy is a load of rubbish. If he reads the Bill, the White Paper and the guidance, he will see that there is to be an organisation with a single block grant, with very limited powers other than general powers about making some kind of observation about the region. The power simply will not be there.
	I agree absolutely with the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice). It was a joy to listen to him. I would be happier, as he would be, if he came over to the Conservative Benches, with all the sound sense that he has, just as I would suggest that some of my hon. Friends would be far happier where he is. We would welcome someone like him, who believes in a sensible way of spending public money and in the retention of democracy.
	What worries me is the extent to which local government has already happened without people being aware of it. I was horrified when I had to inquire into the possibility of getting all these ridiculous Euro-grants for my constituency—although it worked out very well, because we are the only place in the whole of Essex to get objective 2 money. I was told always to remember a place called Hertfordshire, which got substantial sums for unemployment and deprivation, even though there was little unemployment or deprivation there.
	I had to find out about regional government in my quest for funding. It horrified me to discover how much there was, and how much was being spent. I spoke to a gentleman called Mr. Riddell, a very nice man, who was the regional director of the Government office for the east of England, which is located in Cambridge and Bedford and was formed from regional council officers from Departments such as the former Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, and the Department of Trade and Industry. He told me that the running costs of the organisation were £6.5 million and the programme budget £330 million, which involved regional selective assistance, smart grants and other funds, and that the single regeneration budget money had now gone to the RDA.
	Then there was something called the East of England Development Agency, which I was told was an NDPB. Clearly, if I had been living in the real world, I would have known what that was—but I still do not know. I found out that its offices were in Norwich, Bury St. Edmonds and Bedford, that it had 12 board members appointed by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, that it had a budget of £4.4 million and a programme budget of £27 million, and that its primary task was to produce a regional economic development strategy.
	Then there was the East of England Investment Agency.

Louise Ellman: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the proposals in the White Paper for the directly elected regional assemblies would give them specific powers over the regional development agencies for general economic development as well as for the allocation of European funding? Would not that deal with some of the problems that he identifies?

Teddy Taylor: If the hon. Lady investigates further, she will find that that is not the case. The assemblies do not allocate European money. They simply tell people to send in six application forms, which I did. They do not make the determinations. To believe that we are going to have elected people doing what people who are appointed to the boards by the Government do is living in cloud cuckoo land.
	I discovered that the East of England Investment Agency was based in Cambridge. Its budget was only £900,000. Then there was the East of England assembly, which was just about to appoint a full-time secretary. There were also two regional planning organisations in the east of England, apparently called SERPLAN and SCEALA, and there was a possibility that they might merge.
	There is a huge amount of regional government already, and the idea that we are simply planning for the future should worry us. Is it right to be moving towards more regional governments, when the sense that we get from the people of Britain is that they want to move away from larger organisations to smaller ones? That is what I found in my constituency, when it was part of a county called Essex. People felt that Chelmsford was too far away and that they were neglected until we became a unitary authority. The idea of saying to my people that, now they have escaped from Chelmsford, they would be better off being run by Cambridge is ridiculous.
	There is no enthusiasm for regional government in England, except perhaps in the north-east and in Cornwall, where people are rather unusual. The sole reason that people in the north-east have for supporting more regional government is that they think it will mean getting some of the huge amounts of extra money that people get in Scotland.

Joyce Quin: As a north-east Member, I know that that is not the sole reason why we support regional government. We believe that it gives us an opportunity to influence events in our region, and a single pot of money, whether limited or not, allows a region to decide priorities for itself in a way that we cannot do at present.

Teddy Taylor: I do not know the area as well as the right hon. Lady, but I visit it often. I go to a place called Durham and other places, and the impression that I get is that people are not interested in having more politicians or more government and simply want to know whether they will get more money.
	The Government should make it abundantly clear in the referendums what the actual position is. Do not let us mislead people into thinking that there will be extra money if there will not. The Government should also think carefully about the ridiculous electoral system that they are proposing, which is exactly the same as the one used for the Scottish Parliament. If people think that regional government is a great idea, they should go up to Glasgow and ask what people think about the devolved Government there.
	Under the proposals, there will be some directly elected people and others who are there simply on the basis of a party list. There will be the ridiculous situation that obtains in Edinburgh, where the majority of Members of the Scottish Parliament have constituents who keep them busy, sending them letters and invitations, but there is another group—sadly, an awful lot of them Conservatives, as we have only one elected Member there—with no constituents and no answerability to anyone. All they have to do is to keep their party happy, so that they stay high on the list. It is ridiculous to have a group of MSPs with no constituency responsibilities, to whom no one phones or writes. That does not create equality, and it is not the type of democracy that we want.
	I hope that, during these referendums, the Government will tell people what is to happen to unitary authorities. In Southend-on-Sea, people are happy with their unitary authority. We think that a great deal of money has been saved and that we are providing better services—although only time will tell.
	Under the new arrangements, it is proposed to set up even larger unitary authorities. I am told that one plan under consideration is to merge some of the district councils with unitary authorities. It would be extremely dangerous to put people under unitary authorities that they do not want without giving them information about them. For example, I know that Rochford district council, which is in my constituency, certainly does not want to join with any other authority and the last council that it would want to join is Southend-on-Sea. It is dangerous to develop such ideas before thinking them through.
	Under the Government's proposals, what will happen to the EU Committee of the Regions? Will only countries with elected regional authorities have the right to send representatives to the Committee? I have always been suspicious about this ridiculous Bill, whose proposals are not wanted by anyone. Indeed, part of the pressure may come from Europe where most countries have regional government.
	The thing that should worry politicians most of all is the fact that the public are switching off from politics. I recently had the pleasure of speaking at a university in Scotland, but I was horrified when only one person in an audience of 300 said that they were actively involved in politics. When I was at university, everyone was involved in politics, either as a member of a political party or some other organisation.
	There is a terrible danger that people in Britain, especially young people, are switching off. They are not interested because there are too many elections and too many public representatives. The Government seem to be planning to offer people not merely elections for the House of Commons, but for the House of Lords and for regional councils, but instead of getting better democracy we shall no longer have any democracy at all. It is not democracy when only 25 per cent. or 30 per cent. of the people vote.
	Our democracy would be far more effective if we had effective councils with real powers answerable directly to the people. The Bill will not proceed because the people will reject it. They do not want more government or more politicians; they simply want to hold on to our basic democracy.
	It is sad to be talking about how we can spread the powers of this Parliament down to regional authorities when a huge quantity of power is going away from this place already. Almost every day, more power goes to Europe because of decisions taken there. There are so many issues that we should be discussing in the House of Commons—sometimes we do—but in respect of which our powers have gone, so what is the point of setting up more assemblies and councils and handing around more democratic rights when our democracy is largely dying because our decision-making powers are being taken away?
	I would love the Government to take a real interest in fighting for democracy, but this Bill is not the way. It will not help anyone. It will cost a lot of money and people do not want it.

David Borrow: I greatly welcome the Bill. I have campaigned for many years for regional government, so it gives me great pleasure to speak in the debate.
	When I became a Member in 1997, I mentioned my enthusiasm for regional government to one or two long-standing Members. They told me that it would not last long and that after a few years I would go native, as many regional government enthusiasts had done in the past. There is something about this place that makes us feel important and weakens our belief that decisions should not be made only in Parliament.
	I have always argued strongly in favour of regional government. One of the best ways to explain my reason for doing so is to describe what happens when I talk to top juniors in schools in my constituency about what an MP does. I tell them that we sit around in Parliament and discuss laws; we talk about where we get money from and what it should be spent on and decide on the priorities. From my perspective in the north-west of England, the key question is whether many of the decisions made in this place and in Whitehall would be better made by men and women who live and work in the north-west, represent people in the north-west and go back every night to their homes in the north-west. My answer has to be yes.
	I do not necessarily want to remove huge tranches of work from this place, but much of our necessary scrutiny and decision making is not done very well because it involves complex detail, such as whether a bit of money should be spent in one local area or another or whether a particular road scheme should go ahead. During the past few months, I have chaired a couple of meetings in my constituency about a road scheme. They have included representatives from Lancashire county council, South Ribble borough council, the residents group and the Highways Agency in Manchester—although it is a national body. We discuss what is, in essence, a regional and local issue: whether a road scheme should go ahead and the priorities involved. That is not a national issue. It should be perfectly possible for decisions to be made by men and women based in the north-west, not by people in London. I should not have to discuss the details of the scheme with the Minister for Transport—they should be sorted out in the north-west. That is why I am in favour of regional government.
	The Bill would not give us regional government; it sets up the mechanism by which regional government can be established. Much of the debate has focused on what is in the White Paper, and I shall deal with that later. However, at some point in the future, the proposals in the White Paper need to be turned into a Bill that will set up regional assemblies. This Bill does not do that; it deals with some constitutional issues relating to the referendums on regional assemblies.
	I am not sure that unitary authorities need to be dealt with in the Bill. I represent an area where there is two-tier local government. I am strongly in favour of both the abolition of Lancashire county council and the establishment of unitary authorities. When Lancashire was being considered in the review of the early 1990s, I was the leader of Preston council. I vigorously opposed unitary status for Preston because I thought that the town was too small and that unitary areas should be larger. That remains my view, although we still need unitary authorities in Lancashire. That is my perspective both as an MP and as someone who has been politically active in Lancashire for a long time. People in other parts of the country may have a different view on whether the abolition of two tiers is right.

Lawrie Quinn: Does my hon. Friend welcome the principle in the measure that there should be independent assessment of the needs of local government, so that in North Yorkshire, for example, we could put right the wrongs perpetrated after so-called commissions such as the Banham review, when councils were abolished with no reference to local people?

David Borrow: I agree with my hon. Friend in many ways. One of the difficulties of previous local government reorganisations was that Parliament decided that Parliament could decide, and that such decisions were not really a matter for local communities.
	One can argue that the Bill is not perfect, but it is a damn sight better than a lot of the previous legislation that has dealt with the abolition of local government and the creation of new local authorities. I have concerns about Lancashire and wonder whether the commission should consider how the existing boundaries of Blackpool and Blackburn would fit, but we may need to consider those issues in more detail in Committee.
	I want briefly to tackle the thresholds issue. Previous generations of hon. Members have taken many decisions that affect the constitutional position of this country's citizens without even asking them. The House voted to take us into the Common Market and to abolish the Greater London Council and the metropolitan county councils without asking the British people. So it is a bit rich for those hon. Members who were involved in that to claim that it is democratically important to set a threshold for the referendums to set up regional assemblies.
	We made it clear in the Labour party manifesto last year that we were in favour of setting up this mechanism to establish regional assemblies. We could have included in the manifesto a promise to establish regional assemblies without holding referendums, but simply by pushing the legislation through. The fact that we agreed to hold referendums is a sign of our belief in asking people in each area whether they want such constitutional change.
	The argument to make that move even more difficult by stepping in and saying that there should be a high threshold often comes from those who have often ignored the wishes of the electorate in making constitutional changes in the past, so I seriously question their motives.

Peter Atkinson: May I remind the hon. Gentleman that in 1978 a Labour Government instigated a referendum in Scotland with the threshold of 40 per cent. saying yes?

David Borrow: There are occasions when the Labour party gets things wrong. The 1997 election was won overwhelmingly and the parties that were in favour of devolution won every seat in Scotland, so it was clearly the will of the people in Scotland that they should be given a referendum without a threshold to establish the Scottish Parliament, which is what they did. Despite their concerns about that Parliament's performance in some areas, all the signs are that they would not wish to see it abolished and to go back to where they were.
	The second part of the debate is not about the Bill, but about the constitutional Bill that would need to be introduced shortly after the first successful referendum campaign. The powers in the White Paper and implemented in the constitutional Bill leave a lot to be desired. Before the first referendum takes place, it is absolutely crucial to have at the very minimum a draft constitutional Bill that lays down the powers that the people can expect if they vote in favour of a regional assembly.
	We should look fairly closely at the number of members of a regional assembly. In a region such as mine—the north-west—to start by talking about having only 25 or 35 members is total nonsense. The scale of the constituencies is totally over the top, and it will take the regional assembly away from people, rather than making it locally accountable.
	We also need to look at the powers that exist. Transport has been mentioned, and I certainly question why the Highways Agency should come to my constituency, as in the example that I cited. That would still happen under the White Paper because the regional assembly would have no power over the Highways Agency, so transport needs to be considered. If employment and economic policies are important, why should all the skills and learning matters still be largely governed centrally rather than regionally? Those issues need to be re-examined to find out whether we can get them right.
	I shall try to be a bit optimistic. One of the things that I have learned about politics is that institutions can have certain powers. They can spend money, take certain decisions and make certain appointments, but successful politicians and institutions use that as the springboard to develop leadership in their communities. What I want to see in the north-west is an elected assembly that operates not along narrow party lines, but reaches out to the broader community, gives leadership to the north-west and provides a vision for the region.
	We should recognise that the idea of a party operating on the basis of 50 per cent. plus one, which often happened in local government—it still happens now in certain places—is nonsense because it is not civic leadership. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) is not in his place. He mentioned a whole list of things in opposing the principle of regional government, but I should have thought that Manchester city council under his leadership epitomised that civic leadership. As an authority and institution, it accepted a wider responsibility than simply delivering services; it accepted a role in the broader community to make things happen.
	If the politicians elected to regional assemblies do not have that wider vision and the ability to bring a broad range of people with them, they will fail. If they can do that, they succeed and will be seen to succeed. They will encourage those parts of the country that do not get regional assemblies early on to follow their example, and I certainly hope that my region will be in the first tranche.

Alan Beith: The hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr. Borrow) made a thoughtful speech. He and a number of other hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), set out the vision of the people who have long been committed to creating regional assemblies in those regions that want them. That is very distant from the carping, narrow and limiting approach of the people who try to deny us the opportunity to make decisions in our own region and produce the kind of political leadership from all parties that can make a real difference to the lives of the people in the regions.
	I do not want to dwell too much on that general case, which has been so very well made, but instead to contribute some points from the perspective of the northernmost part of the northernmost region in England. By definition, it is the furthest region from London—it seems further from London than many parts of Scotland—and it has a very strong regional identity, to which my constituency contributes a great deal. The region has a very strong cultural identity, expressed in music, dialect and drama, and my constituency contributes enormously to those things.
	There is a great sense of pride in the Newcastle-Gateshead bid to be the capital of culture and in other things that are going on in the centre of the region. It is interesting that it is a Newcastle-Gateshead bid because, for years, the two communities on opposite sides of the river were nothing but rivals and ignored each other to an extraordinary extent, but we now have co-operation in what is recognised as the main urban centre of the region. It is not the only urban centre in the region, but it is the largest and some very exciting developments are happening there.
	Those who represent an area so far from London as the one that I represent are immediately conscious of the feeling that people have that decisions are taken too far away from them to reflect their own concerns, by people who do not understand or know about their area and problems. It is almost impossible to visit those people in a day's journey, in the way that people in areas closer to London can. It is rare for me to get large parties of people or school children to come to the House of Commons because they have to come for several days to accomplish such a visit. London is a long way from the area that I represent, so there is a genuine interest in taking decisions closer to home.
	Of course my constituency covers a large area and the northern part of it is on the Scottish border. There are two different perceptions of the regional issue in my constituency. People close to the Scottish border ask, XWhy can't we have what they have got?" They look over the border and they see a lot more money—I shall come to that in a moment—and the Scottish Executive can make decisions about where its priorities lie. It can make decisions about the A1 and other matters because it has the power in its own region. My constituents want that sort of power to be exercised in our own region and at a place that is a reasonable distance away, so that they can make effective representations. So the sense in the northern part of the region is that Scotland has something that we are being denied.
	To the southern part of my constituency, however, many more people travel to Newcastle or Tyneside to work because they must look for employment opportunities there. They make extensive use of what are essentially regional facilities based in Tyneside, and are particularly conscious of being located within a north-eastern region. That is a region in which regional government clearly already exists. The idea that the Bill will create regional government is misleading—we have had it for years. Currently, it takes the form of the Government office for the north-east, the regional development agency and the plethora of quangos and other bodies that were described earlier. It is there but it is not accountable to the region. When I or others go to the Government office for the north-east we are always conscious that however helpful the individual servants are, and however much they want to advance the interests of the region, their paymasters are in London, and they are looking over their shoulders to decisions that are taken in London. They will put a case to London, where the decision will be made.

Lawrie Quinn: I recognise that, like me, the right hon. Gentleman serves on the Standing Committee on Regional Affairs. Can he reflect briefly on his experiences, which may be shared, of that attempt to scrutinise and hold to account the current state of affairs?

Alan Beith: My memory goes back further to the first attempt to set up a regional affairs Committee, which once had a debate about the north-east of England. First, no Conservative Members could be found to attend the Committee, until my good friend Lord Elliott was eventually found—he was usually the only Conservative who could be induced to appear on such occasions. Subsequently, not enough Labour Members could be found to get a quorum for the Committee. Even in its more recent incarnation, it is a virtually non-existent body. I cannot remember when I was last summoned to it, or when it ever did anything. Manifestly, it is the wrong sort of body even to oversee decisions, which should be overseen within the region. Many Members have argued—I do not want to add to those arguments in my limited time—that we need to develop the powers of a regional assembly so that it can fulfil those functions and satisfy those aspirations. We will not get that unless we create the body and build from there. As critical as I am of the limitations of these proposals, we must start, put the body into existence and demonstrate that it needs more power and can make good use of more power.
	Although I believe that it is worth creating even a limited regional assembly and building on its powers, I also want to win the referendum. If Ministers also want to win the referendum, and want to be in a position to say to people in the region who have looked closely at these matters that they are offering something worthwhile, they must understand this point. Business people in the north-east are not intrinsically hostile, but their first question is: can the assembly deliver things that will help us in our business in the region? Can it provide better infrastructure or ensure that that is provided? Can it make decisions nearer to us? If Ministers cannot give positive answers to that, they will not get backing from sections of the community who are prepared to be sympathetic if they see that a regional assembly is capable of delivering things that matter to them.
	Of course, people in the region also feel strongly about Government finance and the whole issue of the Barnett formula. That issue will not go away, because it is clearly recognised in the north-east that we are not given the same financial opportunities to tackle problems that have been available to Scotland to tackle the very same problems: the decline of major industries, rural depopulation and so on. We have not had a comparable basis for dealing with those problems.
	The other issue that I want to address is local government, which many Members have mentioned. If we go into a referendum campaign having been offered a single-tier Northumberland covering the whole current area of Northumberland as the only local government body, that will make it extremely difficult to persuade people in my part of the region to accept and vote for the regional assembly that they might otherwise want. That is a separate question. At the very least, people should be able to make that decision separately on the voting paper. The only votes that should count on that question should be those of the people who live in the area affected. People in Newcastle and Redcar do not want to decide what the local government system in Northumberland should be, and they should not be given the opportunity to do so. That is a decision for people in Northumberland. If the Government want to demonstrate that they feel that the two issues are related, they should at least give people the opportunity of a second question. Ideally, however, the matter should be decoupled completely. That will be felt most strongly in Northumberland—I refer only to our position—if we are offered a local government unit that is simply too large to deal with local housing questions, too large for people to identify with, and dominated by its south-eastern urban corner to the detriment of rural areas.
	When Conservative Members talk about our historic counties, their argument is often bogus. Who can claim that a County Durham that does not contain Darlington, Gateshead, South Shields or Hartlepool is the historic County Durham? That is simply not so. Indeed, my constituency, which is a long way from Durham, contained outposts of the historic county of Durham—Islandshire in the north of Northumberland was part of County Durham. That suited the prince bishops of Durham, and it survived long after they had gone, but it did not make administrative sense. A number of the historic counties simply did not make administrative sense. Some of them were ruthlessly abolished regardless of their administrative merits. Hereford and Worcester was bundled together by a previous Conservative Government. The royal county of Berkshire was totally removed by a Conservative Government—it does not exist in administrative terms. In some areas, the case was strong; in other areas, it was weak. The idea that the counties can be erected as the alternative to a system that recognises and makes accountable the regional government that already exists, however, is unreal.
	These issues should be decoupled. The region in which I live, part of which I represent, would benefit from being able to make decisions through an elected regional assembly. I want people to vote for that regional assembly, and I do not want us to be handicapped in that process by Ministers offering less to the region than they could do, or by confusing the issue with a vote about local government, which is a wholly different matter. 7.47 pm

Joyce Quin: It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). I must say that I strongly agreed with his speech. Perhaps it is a surprise that I should be in such strong agreement with a Liberal Democrat, but I am comforted in that thought by the fact that we are both part of the north-east constitutional convention and of the embryonic yes coalition—yes to regional government—that is under way in our part of the world. I strongly agreed with the right hon. Gentleman's comments about the sense of identity in the north-east, and my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) also made the point that, in England, and within Britain, we can identify strongly with our region. Growing up in the north-east of England, I always felt that I was part of the region as well as being British. All of us have different levels of identity that can sit comfortably together. That is an important part of the debate on regional government.
	Opinion polls in the north-east of England show a strong sense of identity with the region, although I concede that they currently show a less strong feeling in support of formalised regional government. That is simply because much of the argument is still to be made, and much of it is still to be won, in terms of the powers and responsibilities that regional government will have, and the real difference that I firmly believe it will be able to make.
	The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) made much today, as he did in the debate on the Gracious Speech, of the fact that people are being asked to vote without a precise formulation of the powers of the regional authorities. The process is identical, however, to that which was followed in Scotland, Wales and London. To make so much of it in relation to regional government in England does not therefore seem justified. In addition, the White Paper, XYour Region, Your Choice" describes in detail the powers that the Government expect the regional authorities to have.
	Although there are shortcomings in the powers outlined in the White Paper, they make a good start in launching the regional government process in England. Page 12 of the White Paper says that regional government is a process. Once it is set up, it will be possible to consider whether new powers should be devolved to the organisations that have been created. I very much accept the starting point for regional government that is outlined in the White Paper. It provides us with a positive message that we can take to the people of the regions when we fight the referendum.

Graham Brady: The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) and the Liberal Democrats have been very clear. They see these proposals as a starting point for regional government and they believe that the process will end up with regional government having tax-raising powers of its own and powers over expenditure. Does the right hon. Lady share that vision?

Joyce Quin: We obviously need to discuss where we think the end point of the process could be. It is probably too soon to say exactly where regional government will end up. It will have to prove itself. I very much hope that, on the basis of the Government's proposals, it will do that. Modest powers to raise tax exist already, given that is possible to raise extra money from the council tax. We can argue about whether that is the best approach, but a tax-raising element already exists. We should not get too exercised about that issue at this stage.
	If everything is to be based on people's consent—this process is, and I approve of the fact that it gives choice to people in the regions—we will be able to respect people's ultimate decision. In Scotland, people were given a two-part question that gave them a say in the finance-raising possibilities of the Scottish Parliament.
	Much has been made in the debate of the views of business. I accept that there is much scepticism on the part of business, and those of us who are enthusiastic about the process need to discuss it with business. However, I hope that it will seize the opportunities available to it in the White Paper proposals and get involved. There are a number of ways in which business can make its voice heard. It is interesting that the submission that many of us received from the TUC shows that it has seen the possibilities of taking part in the civic forums, in the committee work and in the policy council work of the regions. It wants to make its voice heard. I urge business to do the same.
	Several of the business community's worries about red tape are exaggerated. Red tape tends to emanate from national and European regulations. There is a real need to ensure that it is simplified and reviewed wherever possible, but the powers for regional assemblies proposed in the White Paper are unlikely to be a source of red tape. In any event, the process is inclusive enough to offer business a real opportunity to make its voice heard. Again, I urge it to do that.
	Many contributions have focused on the link with local government reform. On that, I agree with some of my hon. Friends and with the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed. It is unfortunate that the two issues are linked, partly because that sends out the message that regional government has something to do with local government when it does not. Regional government is about decentralising from the centre. That is the essence of the message that we should seek to convey.

Parmjit Dhanda: Some of us who live in areas that do not have as strong a regional identity as the north-east wish that they had it. We see the mechanism as an opportunity to move towards unitary authorities. What does my right hon. Friend think of the idea of having unitary authorities in regions that will not even vote for a regional assembly?

Joyce Quin: It is important to give people the opportunity to move to unitary authorities. I understand the rationale behind that. However, I believe these proposals could mean that unitary areas—most of my area is unitary already—impose a solution on areas that are two-tier at present. I would much rather that the people in those areas could choose for themselves. However, there is a strong argument in favour of unitary authorities, and I wish my hon. Friend well in his attempts to establish a good structure in his region that will provide a successful way forward for the future.
	How we engage people in the vote is another important issue. Many hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor), have lamented the low turnouts in elections. Although that may sometimes have something to do with people's disinterest in elections, I was very struck by what happened in my local authority area of Gateshead. In a local election in which there were no particular burning issues and in which there was an all-postal ballot, the turnout went from the normal average of 25 per cent. to 60 per cent, which is higher than the general election turnout in my area. I spoke to people about postal ballots and they said that they fitted in very well with today's lifestyles and, particularly, with those of people who work long hours. It might also be worth considering moving elections from Thursdays to the weekend, but people thought that the postal ballot system that was operated allowed them to cast their vote without the pressure of trying to fit it into their working Thursday. Many people find that difficult. We should consider full postal ballots for the regional election.
	We should also consider ways of combining the regional election with other elections. People would not have to vote on different occasions, and combining elections that were important to people would create more interest. I also urge the Government to consider the submissions made by organisations such as the Royal National Institute of the Blind and Mencap, which have said that, whatever system we use for electing regional government, it should be as widely accessible as possible.
	There are many ways in which we can make a positive case for regional government. I do not accept the argument that regional government has not been an economic success. For example, the history of Germany since the second world war shows that extremely successful efforts on technology have been made in areas such as Baden-Würrtemberg. Furthermore, the way in which North Rhine Westphalia managed the transition from older to newer industries shows that economic successes have taken place. Interestingly, the areas that I have mentioned did not have great historic identities; they were largely created by the allies after the second world war. None the less, they have been economically very successful.
	The Bill is an important step forward for the economy and our political system. I welcome the fact that Labour and Liberal Democrat Members are firmly grasping the opportunities for the people of our regions. I hope that we will make a success of devolution not just for the benefit of the regions but for the health of the democracy of the United Kingdom as a whole.

Robert Key: I shall not vote for the English regions smoke-and-mirrors Bill. This has been a remarkable debate, because everyone who has spoken has had something important to say. Many of them have a great deal of experience, and the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) spoke with great authority. I worked closely with him when he was the leader of a city council and I was a local government finance Minister. We addressed jointly many of the issues that he described.
	One issue that we had to address was that of the Government offices for the regions. Michael Heseltine and I, as his junior Minister, had a good reason for deciding that that should go ahead in principle. It was implemented later by my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer). We decided that there had to be joined-up government with those Departments that had a regional presence, but less than half of them had a regional presence and the others, such as the Home Office, probably never would. There was never any suggestion that establishing the Government offices was a precursor to regional government. That is the myth that is being put about and it needs to be scotched.
	I referred to the legislation disparagingly as the smoke-and-mirrors Bill, and I wonder whether the Deputy Prime Minister has read his White Paper, let alone his Bill. When he said that people in the English regions would have opportunities similar to those available to the people of Scotland and Wales, he was extremely wide of the mark, because no such thing is mentioned. The right hon. Gentleman also said that we have made a judgment of what powers will be available. He may have made a judgment, but he has not told us about it. It is not in the White Paper or the Bill. We want to know what it is. I agree wholeheartedly with those hon. Members who said that it is absurd to go into a referendum without knowing for what one is voting. I hope that that will be addressed.
	I recognise the strength of the argument made by the right hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Joyce Quin). I recall a Friday debate in the House a decade ago when I stood at the Dispatch Box as the Minister and she was on the Opposition Benches. We were on the same sides of the argument then. Although more progress has been made down her route, we shall have to wait and see what happens.
	As a local government Minister and someone who presided over both the council of the Isles of Scilly and Warkworth parish council, I am in no doubt of the important differences in our region. The problem is how those are to be recognised. The hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) is right to champion the cause of a Cornish assembly. I wholeheartedly agree with him. Cornwall is very different. It needs special treatment and special opportunities to meet the challenges.

Andrew George: The hon. Gentleman is in the same Government zone—I cannot call it a region—as I occupy. Indeed, my constituency includes the Isles of Scilly. As the hon. Gentleman has experience of setting up Government zones, does he agree that the purpose of a region is to have an area with internal integrity, shared interests and shared identity? The Government zones do not.

Robert Key: Yes, that is the point. It is about the delivery of Government services from the centre to local people, and about the voice of individual local people being heard and acted on. Government by focus groups is the most phoney thing we have seen in this country for many years.
	What do we do about it? Last Saturday I went to a meeting of the south-west constitutional convention, which hon. Members know is a pressure group designed to encourage everyone to vote in favour of regional assemblies. It was a remarkable experience. I think that I was the first Conservative MP to have set foot in that viper's nest. It was disrupted by a lot of unpleasant people who decided that the meeting was part of a conspiracy. They did not want to debate the issue properly and wandered around with placards saying that we were quislings and traitors and other charming epithets. Nevertheless, the meeting was brilliantly chaired by the Bishop of Exeter, who I am glad to say took a great deal of flak and abuse—as did his staff, which was unjustified. The bishops must be part of the process. They are part of the constitution. They vote and speak in the other place and should be part of the debate. I have no difficulty with that.
	As someone who was born in war-ravaged Plymouth; who moved to Salisbury in 1947 at the age of two; who went to Truro in 1960; and who relocated back to Wiltshire, I have a deep love and understanding of regions, especially my region. One problem we face is whether we have a democratic deficit or voter fatigue. I think we have voter fatigue, and creating another tier will not help. Hon. Members on both sides of the House referred to the representation that would result from that, with elected assembly men and women looking after, in theory, about 200,000 electors each. What would they be for? This place engages us in policy making, in the legislative process, in voting on a range of issues, including tax and spending, and in holding the Government to account.

Lawrie Quinn: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Robert Key: Of course. The hon. Gentleman has intervened on everyone else, so why not me?

Lawrie Quinn: The hon. Gentleman has made an extensive study of the proceedings of the House and has experience as a Minister. Does the Regional Affairs Committee do a good job? Is it effective and does it meet the demands of scrutiny, which is the high test that he places on it?

Robert Key: I have no view on that because I had forgotten that the Committee existed.
	Let us consider the financial problem. The Government tell us that an elected assembly will cost about £25 million a year to run and the direct budget responsibility of a regional assembly will be about £300 million. The rest of the annual public spend for the south-west is about £20 billion. That would remain with central Government. The pocket assembly that we would create would increase the potential for party strife, institutional inertia, delay in decision making, departmental and local government turf wars and paralysis of good government. It would add in spades to the very problem that we are trying to solve. The notes of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister say that there will be no new bureaucracy, stating that, XBy providing stronger scrutiny and improving co-ordination between existing bodies, elected regional assemblies should reduce bureaucracy." Believe that and you'll believe anything.
	What we actually have here are scrutiny, influence, patronage, consultation and co-ordination, but no new regional policy making, no new power and no new money from London, although there may be a rise in the council tax—just the functions that already belong to the indirectly elected south-west regional assembly, minus its social and economic partners, plus endless duplication and second-guessing of existing delivery systems in, for instance, health and culture. The Bill does not offer us regional government. I accept that it is merely an enabling Bill, as the hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr. Borrow) explained. Nevertheless, it is hugely important that we recognise that we are not being offered regional government on the same terms as Scotland or Wales.
	It is no good thinking that the experiment will work if we do not have cohesive regions in which people believe. The south-west is not a region. Cornwall is, and it should have its own assembly. Wiltshire, my county, is part of Wessex. Bristol is a city state, ranking with its neighbour Birmingham. But all the other counties are just that.
	The south-west was created during the second world war as a convenient administrative unit. It is a creature designed by committee. It has no heart and no soul, and people down the ages would not have risked their lives for it. It would not have done Henry V much good at Agincourt if he had cried, XGod for Harry, the south-west region and St. George"—or even St. Endellion.
	We have to face the English question, which has been touched on. The creation of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly stripped Scots and Welsh Members of Parliament of their responsibility for devolved issues. Yet they still come to Westminster and vote on issues that affect my constituents on which they have no responsibility to their electors. That is widely seen as unfair, unjustified and undemocratic. It is accelerating the disintegration of the United Kingdom and fragments good government. We do not need a regional assembly. Instead, we need a Parliament at Westminster which works for England and the English regions. I do not believe for one moment that we need a separate English Parliament.

Austin Mitchell: As I argued earlier, that would be an elephant in the cuckoo's nest. It would also increase the dominance and overweening power of London in what will be a smaller population when Scotland and Wales do not count as part of it.

Robert Key: That would not be the case if the rest of my argument is applied. It is important for us to look through the correct end of the telescope, which we are not doing at the moment. Our constituents are not impressed by the Government rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. We need to strengthen local democracy and restore faith in the work of our parish councils, district councils and county councils. We need to ensure that they are properly funded, which in the south-west they are most certainly not compared to everywhere else. The Barnett formula is also part of the problem.
	We should strengthen our democracy and we should recognise the shift that has taken place in the burden of taxation from central to local. If we measured council tax against the retail prices index, fuel prices or electricity prices, we would be amazed at the shift that has taken place over 15 years. A local income tax is certainly not the answer.
	We need to give the Government renewed confidence to deliver what their citizens want. As we know, local authorities are judged against more than 200 annual targets and performance indicators. They have to agree up to 46 plans from Whitehall and they are monitored by four different inspection regimes. That is death by red tape and it is mad. The answer is certainly not another tier of bureaucracy.
	We have to consider other ways of strengthening local democracy. I take great interest in the proposition that we should consider electing more public officials, not only mayors. Perhaps we need to consider education—I do not know; I am speaking for myself.
	The hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) spoke of the importance of having a regional Select Committee. I suggest instead having elected senators in an upper House to replace the existing House of Lords, and I would give them regional responsibilities. That would provide a regional aspect independent of this House which would be worth having.
	I finish by simply pointing out that democratic institutions must have legitimacy. Our counties have legitimacy because they are organic communities; they are part of the geography and the geology, the dialect and the architecture, and the customs, practices and traditions of our country. Local government, in district councils such as Salisbury, is built on the rock of our nationhood. My fear is that since regions are lines drawn on a map, regional governments as proposed would be castles in the sand which would be washed away as the first tide of history rose up the ancient shores of the west of England.

Lawrie Quinn: I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak after such a clear reference to the beauty of the coastline and the seaside.
	As the Member for Scarborough and Whitby, I am particularly pleased to follow the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key). Many people in my part of the world remember his role as a former Minister. He was the man from Whitehall who came to Malton and scotched, probably for a generation or more, the possibility of improving the key transport link in the area, the A64 from the A1 to the Yorkshire coast, thereby denying us something that central Government had promised us. I mention that to demonstrate why we need to take a regional and more strategic approach in key areas such as transportation. I am sure that my local newspapers will remember that the key—if I may use that word—to our failure was the man from Whitehall.
	I have said that I agree with the Bill in principle. It is an enabling Bill for an important process; it does not achieve the end but it begins to will the end. Like many Labour Members, my first acquaintance with this policy goes back to my involvement in the regional Labour party in Yorkshire. I recall that in the late 1980s, when there was a centralising Government down in London, we realised that we were disconnected from the decisions that would affect our locality.
	I shall concentrate my remarks on what I am pleased to refer to as Yorkshire and the Humber because it has become a clearly identified region. If we compare it with a European nation state, such as Denmark, we find that there are clear parallels in the size of the population and in the economy, except that Yorkshire, as usual, comes out on top. Yet we do not have a mechanism for determining our future prosperity.

Louise Ellman: Does my hon. Friend agree that for his region, as for the other English regions, the Bill and the legislation that hopefully will follow concerns economic regeneration and the introduction of accountability to the regional organisations, the quangos, which already exist in every region?

Lawrie Quinn: I strongly agree. My hon. Friend gives the lie to some of the contributions by Conservative Members. They talk about extra money and extra costs, but we already have this stream of government. Earlier we almost had an acceptance by the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) that we already have a form of regional government. However, it is not accountable and it cannot be influenced by the feelings and contributions of local people, particularly in my area, which is on the very periphery of the region.

Robert Key: The argument about regional chambers, or in our case the south-west regional assembly, not being representative is wrong. Every tier of local authority, including unitary authorities, is represented on that body by councillors, who make up some three quarters of the membership, in addition to the social and economic partners. It is an indirectly representative body, and those councillors, as elected representatives, are working their socks off for us.

Lawrie Quinn: I do not deny that those individuals are making a contribution to the life of the region, but the key point for Labour Members is that they are not accountable. They do not face the key test of the ballot box. All of us in the Chamber have been elected on an equal basis in a pure and simple form of democracy. That is the acid test. I know that when I go before the people of Scarborough and Whitby, representing my party and my propositions, I stand the chance of being sacked if they do not agree with me. That is democracy, and people want that umbilical cord link between representatives and significant public expenditure. At the moment, there is no ballot box to test whether they are representing the view of communities, and without that acid test our system is not accountable.
	I turn now to concerns about the Bill, and I hope that there will be an opportunity to deal with them in Committee. I agreed with many of the contributions from hon. Members on both sides of the House, most notably my right hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Joyce Quin) and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). They pointed out that we need draft legislation to indicate what will follow the test of the referendum. I hope that Ministers will give further consideration to that during, if not before, the Bill goes into Committee.
	Many hon. Members have referred to unitary local government, and I decided to test the proposition that they put forward not only in relation to my parish councils and my borough council, but among the many North Yorkshire county councillors who represent Scarborough and Whitby. The clear message is that it is unnecessary to separate the two arguments because that would lead to confusion. The wreckage left in North Yorkshire by the Banham commission proposals was forced on the people without any test, any referendum or any consultation. I remember spending many nights in a room in the Shambles in York trying to argue the case for the Labour party in North Yorkshire to the commission. On one occasion, Sir John and the rest of us were locked in the room, and we had to escape by ladder. However, there was no escape from the horrendous piece of legislation forced on the people of North Yorkshire. To this day, the people of Whitby remember the early 1970s, when rural district councils lost the right to decide what was appropriate for an area. I almost received a grudging acceptance of that point in the debate on the Gracious Speech from the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), who has great experience of North Yorkshire affairs. The people of Whitby would like a big apology from the Conservatives for what they perpetrated for many years.
	The people of Whitby would like a say in their destiny and what happens to them, particularly as the town is one of the most peripheral communities in our region. To many people in Whitby, Northallerton is the other side of the moon and London is a quantum distance away.

Andrew Lansley: I am rather confused. Is it not the Government's intention in clause 2 to impose unitary status where it does not currently exist in regions that vote that way? The people of Whitby will be so heavily outvoted by the unitary authorities in Yorkshire and Humberside that they will have no say in the matter.

Lawrie Quinn: The hon. Gentleman is welcome to visit Whitby any time. I am sure that the people who frequent Baxtergate would tell him that they were most offended by the fact that the Conservative Government did exactly what he has just suggested. At least this time, the people of Whitby, Scarborough and Yorkshire will have an opportunity to have a say in resolving that important question and will have the right to determine their future. The Bill makes that proposition and is a piece of enabling legislation.
	There is a feeling that the number of regions allowed to hold a referendum would be restricted by the resources of the boundary committee. I hope that that would not be an unnecessary stumbling block, preventing regions such as Yorkshire and the Humber from having an early opportunity to test the question.

Austin Mitchell: Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be sensible for the north-west, Yorkshire and the north-east to go together as the proud north in one referendum?

Lawrie Quinn: That proposition is very attractive. In Yorkshire and the Humber, 89 per cent. of people already live in unitary authority areas. The 11 per cent. in the rump of North Yorkshire, forced on us by previous Conservative Administrations, would have an opportunity to sort out that mess.
	Finally, I hope that in Committee we can spend some time considering the wording of the ballot paper, especially the preamble. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) covered that in his speech. The preamble sounds long, complex and perhaps even rambling—some Members may think that it is similar to my speech—but we should pay close attention to it. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby talked about the great cultural reputation of Yorkshire and the Humber, but in his list of theatres he failed to mention the Stephen Joseph theatre, the pre-eminent theatre in our region, and Sir Alan Ayckbourn.
	I hope that the Bill receives a fair wind on Second Reading, and I wish to express my willingness to serve in Committee.

Peter Atkinson: May I tell the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Lawrie Quinn) that his speech was by no means rambling? We listened to it with interest but, sadly, he is plain wrong about the people of Whitby having a say. They will not—they will be so heavily outnumbered by people in unitary authorities in Yorkshire and Humberside that their vote will be totally irrelevant. That also applies to my constituency, where the same situation arises.
	I listened with great interest to the right hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Joyce Quin). I am sorry that she has just left the Chamber, as I wanted to pay her a compliment. No doubt if she reads Hansard she will pick it up. I can let Members into a secret which, as I am mentioning it in the Chamber, will doubtless remain a secret. If there is to be an independent regional assembly in north-east England, the right hon. Lady is tipped to be First Minister. I hope that there will be no regional assembly in the north-east, but if there is—and if there is not a Conservative First Minister, and if there is not a monkey which we would like to elect in the north-east—I hope that the right hon. Lady will be the Labour First Minister. Her interest in regional government goes back many years and although I completely disagree with her, we should all compliment her on her long-term pursuit of regional government for the north-east.
	We would all agree with the Bill much more if the Government proposed real devolution, but that is not on offer. If it suggested giving more power back to local authorities, I would be more inclined to support it. If it proposed to give much more power back to individual schools and hospitals, I would certainly support it. If it proposed getting rid of the dreaded Barnett formula, which discriminates against the north-east of England and, now I hear, the south-west, I would support it, but that is simply not on offer. Speaker after speaker on both sides of the House has said that the proposals are for a pygmy assembly with no real power. Those such as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) and my neighbour, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), and others who say, XVote for what is on offer tonight, because it is only a small beginning, and it will be a beginning", should have listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice). He made clear the Government's true agenda.
	If one is a socialist—I take it that there are one or two socialists left on the Government Benches—one believes fundamentally that whether one gets good treatment in hospital or adequate benefits should not depend on where one lives. The welfare state should be based on need, not area. I think I am right in saying that that is what Labour Members believe. The very idea of regional assemblies being given full powers over health and education, as the Liberal Democrats want, will mean disparities between one region and another. I am sure that that is what the Prime Minister believes. That is why nothing more will happen. If we have some regional assemblies in this country, that is as far as it will go. The Bill will not be the start of a process that will lead to anything like proper devolution.

Austin Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman should not slur the new Labour party with the taint of socialism. That is a shocking attack, particularly when he misinterprets what socialism is about. Socialism is about democracy, which requires the provision of good universal standards, and the freedom for regions and the authorities accountable to the people to vary and improve the standards that they choose for their purposes.

Peter Atkinson: The term Xuniversal standards" is the clue. That is what the hon. Gentleman wants. On this side, we believe in competition. I would favour competing regions with independent hospitals and independent schools, all trying to provide the best service for their people. That is what I believe should happen. The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. If he believes in the universality of services and benefits and the welfare state, a fully devolved regional system in this country would work contrary to that.
	I believe that the Bill will go no further. Hon. Members should have listened carefully to the hon. Member for Pendle, and they should read carefully what he said, because he was telling the truth about what will happen. I believe, too, that the reason there is to be a question about local government reform in the referendum is that it was inserted by the Prime Minister. We know, and it has been confirmed again tonight, that the Prime Minister is not in favour of regional assemblies. The Deputy Prime Minister might be, but we suspect that the question about local government reform was intended to sabotage the proposal.
	The Minister for Local Government and the Regions points to the Prime Minister's preface to the White Paper, but the Minister was not in the Chamber when that was mentioned to the hon. Member for Pendle, and he should hear the response from the hon. Member for Pendle—XIf you think the Prime Minister wrote that, you must be joking—he probably never even read it." I agree again with the hon. Member for Pendle. It is essential that hon. Members do not think that by voting for what is on offer tonight, they are opening the door to something more. It will not happen.
	I shall deal with one point that affects my part of the United Kingdom, the north-east of England, particularly the county of Northumberland, which the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed mentioned. Perversely, if there is to be a Boundary Committee review in that area, it is not the county that will be abolished, but the district councils.
	In 1994 the Boundary Commission on Northumberland, after much argument, came down in favour of the two-tier status quo. One of the proposals at the time was that there should be three unitary authorities in the county of Northumberland. The Boundary Commission considered that, and concluded that because the total population of Northumberland is just over 300,000—apart from the Scilly Isles, it has the smallest population, although it is huge in area—and about 200,000 of those live in the urban south-east of the county, the remainder of the county would have too small a population and too small a rate base to support unitary authorities.
	What will happen if the boundary committee is forced to introduce a unitary authority there? The only conclusion is that there will be county government in that area. At present there are six district councils that cover vast areas—my own district council is the biggest in England, with over 800 square miles. Decision making will be taken away from that local level. Some of it will be moved to county level, and in the case of Northumberland, that will mean that county hall is many miles away from many of my constituents. Some decision making will be moved up even further, to the regional level.
	What the people of Northumberland will gain from that is decisions being made far, far away from where they count. How is local democracy served by that? I suspect that when the matter is put to the people of Northumberland and they realise that they will lose their district councils, they will have a very different attitude. That is why support for regionalism in the north-east of England is beginning to decline.
	The Deputy Prime Minister made the point that the reason why the Government are choosing the regions for referendums as they are now is that that was a legacy left by the last Conservative Government. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) mentioned that. The regions were designed for administrative convenience. The north-east region has nothing to do with an area for which people feel an affection. Regions can exist only if people have a cultural affinity with them, or an emotional or historical attachment to them, as in counties. People go on about Germany, Italy and other devolved countries, but they are largely made up of traditional former states. There is a cultural and historic connection.
	The north-east of England does not have that. It is not a unified area. The people up in Berwick on the Scottish border have nothing in common with the people down on Teesside. The people on Teesside do not want to be ruled by a Geordie parliament based in Newcastle. The people south of the Tees want to be in north Yorkshire. Perversely, the people of north Cumberland, who were traditionally part of the northern region, want to be part of the north. If there were a northern region, they would like to be included in it and not placed alongside Manchester.
	I hope that more Labour Members who have spoken against the Bill will join the Opposition in the Lobby. The Bill will not help local democracy, but damage it, so it is right that the House should reject it.

Hilton Dawson: It is a pleasure to take part in what has been a very good debate, especially as a Northumbrian following a Northumberland MP and a fellow Northumbrian. I must ask the permission of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), but I would like to be known as an adopted Lancastrian as well. As a strong supporter of the mighty Sunderland in the premier league and the almost as mighty Lancaster City in the UniBond premier league, I am a strong supporter of the idea of north-east and north-west going hand in hand in the first phase of a referendum on regional government.
	I strongly support the Bill because I think that regional government is in the interests of the people whom we represent. We have heard some extraordinary arguments against it, one of the most peculiar of which was the suggestion that people do not want regional government or understand what it is about. People who come to my surgeries and contact me speak about issues of democracy, powerlessness and strategic planning and the feeling that they have no effective voice. They also speak about transport and economic development, and complain that the county council, which I think is an archaic form of local government, is remote from their lives. The county council cannot properly engage with crucial functions at a district level or with the health service because of its size and the weight of bureaucracy that is present in all such councils, and it does not properly engage with the voluntary, private or community sectors, which are vital to the development and reconstruction of our democracy.
	The issue is about democracy and the people whom we represent having genuine involvement in the powers that are currently devolved at a regional level, but are operated by people who are unelected, even though they are doing a good job in many cases. In the city of Lancaster, we are seeing the tremendous work of the North West Development Agency coming to some fruition. Only last week, the Infolab development at Lancaster university was approved. That will provide a sustainable base for the science-based business of the future in the northern half of the north-west region. Major efforts have been made at regeneration, including the development of brownfield and riverside sites and the reconstruction and re-use of old buildings for new forms of business, housing and development that are fit for the 21st century.
	I think that regional government is government for the 21st century. It will not merely be government in which county councils are writ large or the sort of municipal local government that developed during the 19th and 20th centuries. I believe absolutely the words of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, who said that it would be a lean and fit form of government. It will focus on specific, vital functions. It is essential that it be allowed to do that before we consider the further development of the regional assembly. We are at the beginning of a profoundly important, democratic, developmental and inclusive process.
	People who weave a fantasy about regional government being a vast, overweening bureaucracy in large regions, and those who complain that there will not be many more elected members or powers overlook some crucial factors. Regional government must engage positively and creatively with the business community and work flexibly with the voluntary and the private sectors. It must engage positively with existing forms of democracy such as parish councils, which are developing powers over planning and transport, and unitary authorities.

Graham Brady: The hon. Gentleman mentions the importance of engaging positively with the business community. Why did the north-west CBI become so disenchanted with the regional assembly that it withdrew from it?

Hilton Dawson: I cannot speculate about that. We do not currently have an elected regional assembly. I have held several discussions with the business community and I am sometimes surprised at the scepticism that it displays. I am also surprised by the Opposition's scepticism. It has already been said that we can confidently expect the Conservative party to fall into line with the democratic structures of regional government in time. We are considering democracy and it is vital to have a democratic voice in powerful and important functions such as planning, transport and economic development.

Andrew Lansley: I am astonished by the hon. Gentleman's argument. How is it more democratic for planning, transport and the structure plan or the local transport plan of a county council to be taken out of the hands of those who were elected by several thousand people and given to members of a regional assembly who will be elected by 250,000 people? That is distant and undemocratic, not democratic and accessible.

Hilton Dawson: I am delighted to answer that. The regional assembly is democratic because the functions of remote county councils—I mean no disrespect to those who work for them—will be devolved to unitary authorities that operate on a smaller geographical scale and use the flexibility that the Government introduced in health and social care to engage properly with vital functions outside such bodies. It will also bring the regional powers on planning guidance and transport strategy, and the functions of regional development agencies, within a democratic remit. The proposals will do away with county structure plans and transfer some of those powers. However, I firmly believe that such powers are not currently effective at county council level. The crucial, meaningful level at which to intervene is regional and very local.

Parmjit Dhanda: Does my hon. Friend agree that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) needs to be more familiar with the planning process? All complex planning applications are currently decided by central Government and take a long time to determine. It would be far better to determine them locally or regionally.

Andrew Lansley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Hilton Dawson: No. This is my speech. I shall continue to make it, if I may.
	Regional government is profoundly important, and by using the opportunity that the Bill gives us, we can strengthen and refresh democracy. We have encountered a number of red herrings tonight, the most notable of which was that the form of government to be used in regional assemblies would allow obnoxious bodies such as the British National party to hold sway. We defeat fascism on the streets and fight it through campaigning. We should not deny ourselves the opportunity for new democratic institutions and new forms of government because of the threat of fascism. We must take those racists and fascists on.
	We have a tremendous opportunity here to affect 6.9 million people in the north-west, and regional government can be a unifying factor for those people. It will ensure that power is used throughout these very large regions, and give an effective voice to both urban and rural communities. It will also ensure that we have a pluralistic democracy in which we are not competing with other regions or with fine towns and cities within the region. Rather, we shall be co-operating and working together effectively for the whole region, and redressing the historic imbalance in terms of powers that have been taken to the centre, and of the economic success that has come to regions such as the south-east and been lost to the north-west.
	I shall be here tonight firmly supporting the Bill, and I very much want to see it go through. As a Northumbrian who is now an adopted Lancastrian, I would like to see the home of the regional assembly of the north-east in the city of Durham, where my father and daughter were both educated. There is a real parallel between Durham and the city that is at the historic heart and geographical centre of the north-west. That is, of course, the city of Lancaster.

Graham Brady: I am pleased to be able to take part in this debate. I am, however, astonished that we are talking about this matter at all, on a day on which the fire brigade is on strike—and we may be facing that industrial action for several months to come—and on which school teachers across London have been on strike and schools have been closed. Yet here we are, talking about something that is not of the faintest interest to any of our constituents.
	I have never heard from a single constituent who supports regional government for the north-west. It simply is not an issue. It is not something that my constituents want, nor is there any demand for it across the rest of the region. My constituents are interested in the state of the health service and the quality of schools. They are desperately interested in whether the Government are about to slap top-up fees on young people going through higher education. They are also concerned about the transport infrastructure, which is grinding to a halt. They are not keen to see the establishment of a new tier of government, a new set of politicians or a new regional bureaucracy. There is simply no demand for that.
	Only 18 months or so ago, we went through a general election in which there was a dramatic collapse of interest among the British public. Politicians from both sides of the House returned saying that the fact that so few people wanted to vote had provided them with a salutary lesson and that we had to learn to talk about what matters to the British people, yet here we are on another frolic—a constitutional fancy that is of no interest to anybody.

David Clelland: The hon. Gentleman says that his constituents are not at all interested in regional government and he may be right. We may have a referendum in the north-east, but the proposal may be rejected—who knows? However, we are not afraid of the test of a referendum in the north-east. What is he afraid of?

Graham Brady: The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, as he has exposed one of the Bill's most basic flaws: even if it receives a Second Reading—Labour Members who properly opposed the whole principle this evening none the less suggested that they will be loyal Back Benchers and troop through the Lobby—and completes its parliamentary progress, we shall not know whether there will be a referendum in the north-west of England, as the Deputy Prime Minister has not been good enough to explain to us how he will judge the demand for it. We have a bizarre proposal before us.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) is not in the Chamber, and I would be careful in making this remark if he were: there may be some interest in the proposal in the part of the country represented by the hon. Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland), but there certainly is not in mine.
	The hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) made a point about the synchrotron investment decision, which was made a couple of years ago. That was the biggest scientific investment in this country, involving £500 million, but this is the acid test for the north-west: would that £500 million have been more likely to come to Cheshire, rather than go to Oxfordshire, which is where the Labour Government chose to send it, had there been north-west regional government? The answer, simply, is no. Such government would have made no difference. The decision was for central Government and it was taken on central grounds involving strategic planning, economic interests and various ideas about agglomeration of scientific facilities. It had nothing to do with the voice from the region.

Hilton Dawson: Does the hon. Gentleman understand why people feel that the Conservative party has so little to offer? He is promoting a strategy of hopelessness.

Graham Brady: Absolutely not. The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong, because I am the north-west Member who brought the synchrotron issue before the House for debate. That was done not by one of his colleagues, but by a Conservative Member. I believe passionately that Members of Parliament are sent to Westminster to represent their constituents and the interests of their regions. That is what we should be doing, not considering silly tinkering with the constitution and setting up new tiers of government in which there is no interest.
	The hon. Gentleman said in his speech that the Opposition are less than enthusiastic about the Bill, but I wonder whether he shares the assessment of his colleague, the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer). He is referred to in yesterday's Manchester Evening News, which says that
	Xonly a minority of Labour MPs support an elected north west assembly and that there is little enthusiasm among the region's local councils. Most were choosing 'to keep their powder dry.'"
	There, it quotes the hon. Gentleman directly and, following my conversations with Labour colleagues from the region, I think he is probably right.
	As far as I can see, regional government is a minority interest among Labour north-west Members and not a single Conservative north-west Member supports the idea. If the Deputy Prime Minister is serious about consulting the elected representatives of the people of the north-west about whether there is sufficient demand for regional government there, the idea will not get off the ground. I very much hope that that is the case. Why? As I said when I intervened on the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre, there is no real support for it. There is no support from the business community.

Tom Levitt: That is not true.

Graham Brady: The hon. Gentleman apparently now has a great knowledge of these matters in the north-west. He says that that is not true, but I would rather listen to the north-west director of the CBI, Mr. Chris Clifford, who is also quoted in the Manchester Evening News. He says:
	XOur members are very sceptical about the whole process. It would create extra costs, create jobs only for bureaucrats and do nothing in terms of the economic well being of the region. All major issues will be conditional on the agreement of the secretary of state.
	It is not the right way forward. It will not add any value to existing arrangements and will increase the political baggage business has to contend with rather than sort it out."
	The hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre would not speculate on why business is not interested in having regional government in the north-west. I do not think that anyone could encapsulate the reason better than Mr. Clifford. Business knows that it will involve more costs and more bureaucracy, and will add no value for those who are trying to run effective, efficient, profitable businesses in the north-west.
	There is also the question of regional identity. We do not have a north-west regional identity. The hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley rightly made the point that before the ITV franchise was split no one used to talk about the north-west. Perhaps we should amend the Bill and dub the north-west XGranadaland", as that may be a more accurate reflection of the region. No regional identity unifies Manchester, Cheshire, Liverpool and the part of the north-west represented by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre.

Hilton Dawson: Tomorrow is Lancashire day, and people will declare their allegiance to the real county of Lancashire.

Graham Brady: As a Lancastrian by birth, I welcome that enormously. It may be one of the few occasions on which I permit myself to wear a red rose in celebration of that fact. The hon. Gentleman makes the point that there is a real affinity with the county of Lancashire. There is no affinity with the north-west as a geographical region, which is entirely artificial.
	If we went down the road that the hon. Gentleman and one or two others would like us to go down the costs would be huge. The cost of the referendum would be the smallest part. There would be the massive cost of reorganisation: the costs of a new bureaucracy, new buildings, new politicians—that is surely the last thing people want–secretaries, researchers, press officers and a whole bureaucracy to support the regional structure. Nothing positive would be added for the people whom we represent. There would be only a huge cost and a huge extra bureaucracy.

Hugo Swire: Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the possible constitutional and financial imbalance if one region voted for an elected regional assembly and others did not? Would that not create a nightmare that would far outweigh the unfairness of the Barnett formula?

Graham Brady: Indeed, and it could do so in a number of ways. If we had the arrangement to which the right hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Joyce Quin) referred, or a tax-raising regional assembly in one part of the country, as the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) suggested, that could work in my hon. Friend's favour. If we had an assembly in the north-west of England that raised higher levels of taxation, all our businesses would flock down to the south-west to get away from it. Perhaps he should not be too concerned, as it could work either way.
	My hon. Friend is right, except that there is an assurance in the White Paper that significant resources would not be provided even if regional government were to proceed. That point was raised at the outset of the debate. In the first instance, there would be more costs with no benefit and no real change. If regional government were to develop, my hon. Friend's point would be valid.
	I should like the Minister to deal with the issue of the use of public funds in this process, because I do not think there is any direct reference to it in the Bill. The Deputy Prime Minister said that he is not neutral on this matter and will campaign strongly for regional government to be adopted as we go through one or more referendums. We know that there are at present various regional conventions or assemblies that combine local authorities. I would like a clear assurance from the Minister that public resources could not be used to promote the idea that there should be a referendum or to campaign on one side or the other in a referendum. I hope that he will make it clear that that would not be allowed, and that strict action would be taken to prevent that.
	Let me end by returning to the central point. I do not think the Bill has any real support in my region or from my constituents, and according to comments attributed to Labour Members representing Manchester in yesterday's local press they do not believe it is even supported by most of their colleagues with seats in the north-west.
	I hope that when the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) has his tête-à-tête with the Prime Minister tomorrow—which he advertised in his speech—he will make it clear that the Bill has no support from Conservative Members representing the north-west, no support from the majority of Labour Members representing the north-west, or so we are told, and certainly no support from the people whom we represent.

Derek Wyatt: I think that there is one thing that we might have got right constitutionally five years ago. Surely, if we create Welsh, Northern Irish and Scottish Parliaments or Assemblies, the least we can do is create an English Parliament, and make the upper House a House of representatives of the four constituency Parliaments. We missed a trick there.
	A case that I encountered illustrates all the problems and confusions raised by what we are debating. A steel mill went broke. It was partly in Cardiff and partly in Sheerness. The part located in Cardiff had the support of Members of the Welsh Assembly and the Secretary of State for Wales. We in the south-east of England have no Assembly, no Parliament, no Minister for the south-east and not even a Select Committee dealing with the south-east. My constituents, therefore, are not treated as fairly as they ought to be.
	I was going to make the point made by the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire). Let us assume that the north-east or the north-west has a referendum first. I note that I am the only Member present who represents a constituency in the south-east. This issue is of no interest in the south-east, because no one in Milton Keynes connects with anyone in Margate or Portsmouth. The south-east is a complete fallacy of an area, and we will never vote for this proposal.
	If a regional assembly is set up, who will my constituents go to? They cannot go to the north-east. There is no south-east parliament or assembly. There will be no Minister or Select Committee for the south-east. They will come here, and that is absolutely wrong. It is unfair and unreasonable. The whole constitutional issue is brought into question. As I have said, we missed a trick by not having four constituency bodies with an overarching House of representatives connecting them.
	Fortunately, my favourite saint is St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes. I feel passionately that we have got this completely wrong. Why has not government for the south-east worked? Why has the South East England Development Agency not worked? It is because it is not accountable here. It is not accountable to a Select Committee for the south-east, or even to a Minister for the south-east—and if such institutions are not accountable, they will create more and more quangos and spend more and more of our money, quite obscene amounts. It is a pity that the Bill is not stronger.
	Even if I have to vote with the Government this evening, there is an issue that I cannot resolve. My constituency has no unitary authorities. There is one unitary authority in Medway, which is too small. It does not work. It was approved on the basis of a single vote at a meeting. If we want a unitary system, my constituency will have to decide whether to go up the river to Dartford, Medway and Sittingbourne. But how will that be done? We cannot possibly have a vote, because we have no unitary authority. There are no unitary authorities in Kent apart from Medway, although Kent is the largest county council in England.
	I am thinking of all the things that we believe in, such as local democracy. I want local democracy. I am sick of the system of centralisation. Nothing will change for us, though, because we will not vote for a regional assembly. My constituents will be worse off in every way.
	I repeat that this is a constitutional problem with which we have not really wrestled. I leave it with the House.

Robert Syms: I follow the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt) in making a similar point about the regions. During the referendum in Scotland, there was no debate about what was or was not Scotland. It was the same with Wales. In Northern Ireland, the whole debate is about what is Northern Ireland, where the boundary is and where people's allegiances lie.
	We have regions in our country, some of which have some affinity but many of which, particularly those in the south-west and south-east, have very little in common. That is a great difficulty. People have a sense of community and of allegiance. I do not believe that most of my constituents have any feeling for the south-west.
	Under the Bill, the Secretary of State must consider the level of interest in a region before he sets the process in motion, yet there has been no way of setting out what that means, how it is weighted or what the tests for a level of interest are. Is it Members of Parliament or local authorities making representations, petitions, a letter- writing campaign, or a self-selecting group that has a particular role in lobbying a Minister? It would help the debate if the Minister, who I know is a details man—I have served with him on several Committees that considered Bills—set out a little more about how the level of interest in a region will be defined.
	The Secretary of State must consider under clause 1(6) whether there is interest to start the process but subsection (8) says:
	XIf subsection (6) does not apply . . . the Secretary of State must consider—
	(a) views expressed and information and evidence provided to him;
	(b) such published material".
	As I read that, it means that the Secretary of State must publish why he is not going to proceed with a referendum but not why he is going to proceed with one. Nothing in the Bill says that he must publish information that has been sent to the Ministry if he proceeds.
	I notice that the Bill contains provision for the Secretary of State to change his mind. I suspect that the Secretary of State will get lobbied, he will say that there is interest in a region, he will announce it, and all hell will break loose as people suddenly start to say that they are not interested and make further representations to him, so it is important for the Minister to make clear what the tests are. Will it be a formalised procedure with a beginning and an end where everyone knows consultation has taken place, or will it be informal—just letters, petitions or whatever coming in on an ad hoc basis? We need to know. That will be critical, as will how the Government weigh up the competing claims of regions in terms of referendums. How will the interest in the south-west, say, be weighed against the interest in the north-east? A lot of that is not in the Bill. Since it is not, it will largely be up to the Secretary of State to state the position, which is a pity.
	It is important that we know what the tests are and what the Secretary of State defines as a level of interest. Whether we have referendums or not, it is important that the information that goes to the Secretary of State is published.
	The regions are not natural areas. I hope that, where referendums are held, votes will be counted on a local authority basis, not on a total regional basis, so that one can see, whatever the overall result in the region, what the level of support is in the constituent parts. Some concern has been expressed on behalf of people in Northumberland, people on the fringes of conurbations that have single unitary authorities at the moment and those on the fringes that have a two-tier system. It will be interesting to see the different levels of support for changes as they are proposed.
	Under clause 5, if there is a referendum and it is lost, another referendum cannot be held for five years and a day. If one were being fair, there would be a provision saying that, if a referendum were won, those who lost the referendum would have the opportunity to have a re-run after five years. It is rather like those European referendums where, if the referendum is lost, they keep having a vote until they get the right answer.
	I have some concerns about the Electoral Commission under clause 8. It seems to be required to give information, but one person's information is another's propaganda. The concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) about what public moneys are going into the process and what the overall cost will be is entirely appropriate. Several of my hon. Friends have spoken about the cost of reorganisation into new tiers of local government and of the assemblies themselves. Experience in Scotland and Wales has shown that the costs of devolved government often end up much greater than originally anticipated.
	My constituents bring local issues to me. We have problems in Poole with social services, which is overspent by £1 million. A centre used by disabled and disadvantaged groups is about to be closed. My constituents would be far better pleased if the resources were given to the local authority to undertake its important tasks rather than being used to create a new class of politician or bureaucrat at some remote regional centre with which they feel no affinity.
	The electoral system is not the brightest, given that having 25 to 35 members for regions of such a size will mean having vast constituencies. I remember the debate here when we abolished first-past-the-post European constituencies because, apparently, they were too large for one person to do anything with, and it was much nicer to have a list. When we moved to the list system, the argument was made almost immediately that the Euro constituencies were too large. Then we had London regional government with large twin-borough constituencies. Now we seem to be setting up very large constituencies in the regions, with populations of 200,000 or 250,000, and a list.
	My main concern is about the level of interest. In the Bill and the notes on clauses, the Government have not provided answers about what will be considered sufficient to trigger this whole process. Perhaps the Minister will fill in some detail about the procedure, especially because, given that the Secretary of State has to gather the information and start the process rolling, and the review of local government may take a year, circumstances may change in the meantime. If a process is started and it is clear that it does not have public support, it is wrong that the Government should not have an opportunity to think again.
	I cannot support the Bill. We have spoken about the regions not being natural. A few years ago, I went as a guest of the Federal Republic of Germany to study its federal system. Of course, the Lander are not ancient. They are amalgamations, and they were amalgamated by military occupation—they could not have been amalgamated without it. I suspect that the Government, who sometimes display some of the characteristics of a government of military occupation, will not wish to open up the question of the boundaries of regions, because frankly, we would never get agreement. I see the Minister nodding at that.
	The proposals are a mistake. I was at school in the city and county of Bristol when it became Avon, and people never reconciled themselves to being in that new county. We have heard a lot about Conservative Governments getting rid of Humberside and Avon without much debate, but the real reason was that people had no real affection for those counties. They had an affection for Somerset, Gloucestershire and the city and county of Bristol. Governments who tamper with ancient loyalties and affections do so at their peril. I rather suspect that, if the Government get this wrong, major campaigns to reverse the changes will bedevil politics for a long time to come.
	We are a very conservative nation and we still argue about what was wrong or right about local government reorganisations that took place 20 or 30 years ago. It is easy to propose constitutional change and to institute referendums, but if we get it wrong, it can cause endless misery and campaigns.

Parmjit Dhanda: I very much welcome the Bill, although it is not without its difficulties.
	Regional assemblies can do much to reduce the democratic deficit. They will also speed up the planning process, on which I shall elaborate. I am sure that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) will be interested in my comments on that.
	The greatest single benefit of the Bill will be for the many of us who are fed up with the two-tier structure of local government. It is time to move on from that and the ultimate benefit of the Bill will be unitary status for local authorities, although there is a downside. Although a recent Mori poll showed that 61 per cent. of people in the south-west of England favour a regional assembly, I must have spent much of my time talking to the 39 people in every hundred who are not in favour of it.
	The hon. Members for Poole (Mr. Syms) and for Salisbury (Mr. Key) both represent south-western constituencies and they hit the nail on the head. Some parts of the country have a much stronger regional identity than others—much to my annoyance, because I support a regional assembly for the south-west.
	When people in my constituency turn to the BBC regional news, they will see XBBC Midlands". If they switch over to ITV, some of them will be watching HTV West while others will be watching Central. That is one of the regional identity problems for areas such as Gloucester that are on the cusp—on the edge of several regions.
	My constituency is an hour away from Birmingham and equidistant from the two national capitals, Cardiff and London, yet it is only half an hour away from Bristol, which is the heart of the south-west. Oxfordshire is the next county along, but it falls into the south-east region, so we are very much on the cusp.
	That may be one of the many reasons that the Conservatives did so badly at the general election in Gloucester. Their campaign slogan was XGloucester born and bred", but most people in Gloucester nowadays were not born and bred there. They come from a wide range of areas, including the big cities that I have mentioned. The Conservatives are so local that they have moved from Gloucester to Cheltenham, so perhaps they will not be using that slogan at the next election.
	The restructuring of local government that will accompany the Bill will be a major benefit. It is high time that we undertook that restructuring. That is not an attack either on county or district councils, but it is difficult to explain to our constituents that they have to approach one local authority about housing and another about education. Similarly, why should roads be dealt with by one authority, yet road-calming measures, pavements, or the trees and shrubs that border the pavements are all dealt with by separate bodies?
	I ask the Minister for Local Government and the Regions to consider the referendum questions. In many areas, such as the south-west, where unfortunately we may not get a yes vote in a referendum, people should still have the opportunity to decide whether local authorities should have a unitary structure. In Gloucestershire, there is a feeling that we could have two unitary authorities, one based in the east and one in the west of the county. Such proposals should not be ruled out during the process.
	A regional assembly would bring many advantages to a constituency such as mine. For example, I hope that it would speed up the planning process. St. Oswald's park, a former cattle market in my constituency, is the subject of a mixed site proposal worth a couple of hundred million pounds and will include retail, leisure and housing. The proposal has the support of the city council, the county council, the MP and local residents. The local newspaper has run a vocal campaign in support of the development. There was little or no objection to the scheme, yet it was called in by central Government. We would still expect to go through the inquiry process—we have done so with St. Oswald's park—but the application has had move on to the Government, the wheels of Government have to turn and it then comes back to the local authority before we can get on with the development. If the planning process were carried out at a more local, regional level, perhaps we could speed it up and help developments such as those in my constituency.

Matthew Green: rose—

Andrew Lansley: I fear that the hon. Gentleman slightly blundered into the subject of whether I had any experience of the planning system as he will not know that, in the past two weeks, I have spent three days at the public examination of the Cambridge structure plan, discussing the green belt and new settlements. One thing that has emerged from those discussions is that the Government have told the regional planning conference that they will determine sub-regional strategies, but we have received a consultation document from the regional planning conference that says that the sub-regional strategy for Cambridge will be determined in the Cambridge structure plan. So, in fact, without the county structure plan, the region would have no idea at all what it was doing.

Parmjit Dhanda: Different regions will find different solutions. That is what democracy is all about. We cannot expect to have exactly the same solution in every part of the country. My point is that big plans for developments often get kicked to central Government, and the Government have to deal with a great number of plans. If we could streamline that process, with more plans going through the regional process, we would be better off.
	I was about to give way to the hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green), but he is now quite happy.
	The key thing is not just regional accountability and addressing the democratic deficit, but doing away with the present two-tier system. Our constituents and many local councillors—I was a councillor for four years—do not understand why we have the current system. This is a fantastic opportunity for us to move to a unitary structure, and I hope that we can do so whether or not people vote for a regional assembly.

Andrew George: I nearly had a déjà vu experience, having bobbed up and down last week during the debate on the Queen's Speech and not having got in, so I am pleased to have this opportunity to make a short contribution to this important debate. I hope that the many contributions made today will encourage the Government to think again about the Bill, which needs some serious further scrutiny before being allowed to proceed.
	I am pleased to follow the hon. Members for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda) and for Poole (Mr. Syms), both of whose constituencies are apparently in my region, although they are about 200 or so miles away from my constituency. I probably share about as much affinity with Poole as I would with Preston or Prestatyn, but such is the nature of this process, which needs to be reconsidered.
	I agree with the criticisms made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey). Every aspect of his criticism of the Bill was absolutely right. I am sorry to say that I will not join him in the Lobby this evening to vote for the Bill because it is not just flawed, it is fatally flawed to such an extent that I cannot support it. I cannot vote against it because I am in favour of the principle of devolution, but this is not devolution; it is, frankly, nonsense. It is called the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill, but I fear that it is, in fact, a recipe for chaos throughout the country.
	The Deputy Prime Minister criticised the XWhitehall knows best" attitude, and it is certainly true that although the Bill is poorly conceived, inadequate and timid, at least the Government should be congratulated on attempting to make an important development. The Bill really represents two contradictory cultures within the Government: one is confident enough to believe that it can let go of power; the other does not share that confidence, still has a fundamental control-freak tendency, and is not prepared to let go of power in the way that is needed to make this piece of legislation work.
	I am pleased that there are many regions—the north-east and others—in which there is some kind of internal integrity and the issue does not arise, but there is such an obsession with boundaries that the policy is at risk of being derailed. I would rename the Bill the emperor's new clothes Bill, as it is propped up on a web of flimsy tautology. Clause 26 says that a region is a region on the basis of the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998. I remember the debate on that Act, and the then Minister for the Regions, Regeneration and Planning, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn), said that he would debate anything but the number of the regions or their boundaries, and that we could wait for the Bill on regional assemblies to debate that issue. We now have the basis of that Bill.
	The Bill is based on this tautology: a region is a region because it is a region. That is like saying that the emperor's clothes are his clothes because they are the clothes. The issue in the referendum will therefore be whether people like the clothes, not whether they think that the clothes exist. The quicksand on which the palace of regional government will be built will ultimately lead to it sinking. It is undeliverable. As many Members have pointed out, we agree with what the Government are trying to do, but the Bill is fundamentally flawed. A region is a region because it has common identity, shared interests and internal integrity.
	If the Deputy Prime Minister means what he says, and we shall have those regions in places where people want them, I can tell him one place that wants one: Cornwall. As has been established, the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) was at the south-west convention explaining what he found good and bad in its approach. That same morning, I was at the Cornish constitutional convention, and I think that more people attended that than the south-west constitutional convention. Usually, when I ask what we do if we find that the region does not exist, the question is met with stunned incomprehension, as though one is asking to redefine the boundaries of God. The fact is that we must allow a debate on the issue. Instead of running away from it, and feeling that it will unleash powers that result in a derailing of the project, we must recognise that some of the so-called government zones—they are certainly not regions—need to be redefined to allow the project to go ahead.

Robert Key: The hon. Gentleman might like to know that at the south-west convention, the head of the Government office for the south-west, when asked whether it would be possible to have a Cornish assembly, smiled sweetly and made it clear that Ministers had decided that under no circumstances would there be one.

Andrew George: It will be found that the south-west is undeliverable—people have prayed in aid the BBC poll, which, having looked at it, would make a statistician's eyes water—as there is no basis for the belief that people will vote for something that is based on a synthetic place that has been created purely for administrative convenience. The Government need to recognise that. In Cornwall, more people have demonstrated in response to the White Paper that they support a Cornish assembly than in the whole of the rest of the country put together. Fifty thousand people signed a declaration that was delivered to Downing street and to the Minister, demonstrating that they support a Cornish assembly. It is not a Trojan horse for Cornish nationalism, and it is not about cutting Cornwall off. It is about cutting Cornwall in to the celebration of diversity. People understand that in Cornwall, and I am sure that they understand it in all other places, too.
	It is not that I am opposed to the development of assemblies in the north-west, the north-east and Yorkshire. Where there is support for regional assemblies, we should allow them to go ahead. However, they are undeliverable in much of the rest of the country. If the Government think that they can get away with this, it will be the triumph of Xplacelessness" over place and identity. If they and their control-freak tendency are not sufficiently constrained and they do not understand that devolution is about letting go rather than hanging on, they could become seriously unstuck. They will succeed only if they chill out a bit, let go and perhaps get out a bit more.

Eric Pickles: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George). He is most robust on the issue of regional assemblies, but he pulled his punches today. I have a quote from him that appeared in the Western Morning News on 8 June 2000. He dubbed those pushing for the idea of a regional assembly as
	Xminor empire-builders and anoraks behind this mindless nonsense."
	I do not know what the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) is—a minor empire builder or an anorak. Perhaps, on occasions, he is both.
	The Government have managed to achieve what many would have thought impossible at the beginning of the debate. They have managed to obtain a degree of consensus in the Chamber. Whether we vote for or against the Bill, there appears to be unanimity that it is a load of pusillanimous nonsense. A couple of speeches were made in favour of the Bill, but as those speeches developed it became pretty clear that they were about an entirely different Bill.
	If the Bill is taken to its logical conclusion, it will commit the spending of £2 billion, which is a lot of money in anyone's terms. Two billion pounds make the sums needed from the Government by the employer's side to settle the firefighters' strike seem small beer. Two billion pounds makes the mobilisation of our armed forces for war seem cheap. One would expect considerable benefits from the commitment of £2 billion of the public's hard-earned cash—perhaps more teachers, more nurses or more police officers. But no, regional government will create not a single new teacher, nurse or police officer. If the Government get their way, the remaining 34 county councils will be abolished. Two billion pounds seems a lot of money to provide a cosy bolthole for regional politicians who did not make it to this Chamber or Strasbourg or who have grown weary of the inconvenience of being responsible to their local electorate.
	As my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) said at the beginning of the debate, there is a crisis right across Europe on regional policy. He produced figures that demonstrated the increase in the disparities between the prosperous and the poor. A regional assembly would be a toothless commentator on those events. There is a clear need for a regional policy from the Government to address those disparities, but a regional assembly would not do that. A bit of window dressing is no substitute for a policy and a collection of gimmicks do not make a single policy.
	As the Confederation of British Industry said in a brief prepared for the debate, its members believe that regional assemblies will not improve decision making in the regions, enjoy the business community's confidence, strengthen democracy or be value for money. The British Chambers of Commerce has said:
	XBusiness frankly wonders why the Government is wasting its time on something that few people want and even fewer people need."
	As the Joseph Rowntree Foundation put it:
	XThe link between democratic decision-making at regional level and economic competitiveness is uncertain".
	We have already heard from the hon. Member for St. Ives about his Xanoraks". Little wonder that the business community has withdrawn from the unelected regional assemblies in the north-west and the east of England. It was not the assemblies' lack of a direct mandate that made the business community walk away, but the fact that they were a complete waste of time.

Andrew Lansley: My hon. Friend and I come from what is termed the east of England. Did he observe that no one on the Labour Benches from the east of England cared to speak up for regional government? Those who spoke on behalf of the south-east and the south-west acknowledged that regional governments would never be established there. Members from the west midlands and east midlands did not appear on the Labour Benches, and opinion was strictly divided in the remaining three regions. So it seems—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman has brought his intervention to a close.

Eric Pickles: I somewhat regret the fact that my hon. Friend did not get an opportunity to participate in the debate. His memory is correct. We come from the same region. Obviously, I have enormous affection for him, but our constituencies have little in common. We do not share economic or planning interests. That can be said of constituencies across the eastern region—[Interruption.] I hope that I am not going to be heckled into submission.
	The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said that a regional identity exists in his constituency, but he had to admit that the paymasters remain in London. The Bill will not change that.
	The hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice), who is meeting the Prime Minister tomorrow to tell him a few home truths about regional policy, made a courageous and important speech. He explained that the north-west has no regional identity. He also rightly told his hon. Friends that a regional assembly will not deliver on a number of things. For instance, it will have virtually no impact on the west coast main line. He spoke most eloquently about money and the Barnett formula, which is what the debate is really about.

Tony Lloyd: I understand that the hon. Gentleman is from a different side of the Pennines, but for my whole life I have been aware of certain differences between Yorkshire and Lancashire. We have got a bit beyond that now, but the idea that there is no north-west identity betrays his origins as someone who comes from Yorkshire.

Eric Pickles: My entire life has been one of co-operation between Yorkshire and Lancashire because I married a Lancashire girl. After the hon. Gentleman left the Chamber, we had a decent discussion about the difference between Manchester and Leeds and how those cities co-operate across different regions. There is a commonality of needs along the M62 and the regions are a side issue.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) exposed the charade of regional inefficiency. He was right to talk about the need to revive democracy. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) made an excellent speech in which he clearly demonstrated the diversity in Northumberland. Few of us will forget the description of his district council, which is about to be abolished. It represents 800 sq m and is to be replaced by a more remote local authority.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) rightly talked about the needs of his constituents. He said that the people of Cheshire have nothing in common with people in the rest of the north-west.

Hilton Dawson: Is not the hon. Gentleman compounding the error made by the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) in referring to the remoteness of Northumberland county council? Surely he is undermining the arguments of the rest of his hon. Friends about county councils being wonderful, viable democratic institutions.

Eric Pickles: The hon. Gentleman misunderstands what we have been saying, particularly about the need for a two-tier system of district and county councils.
	The referendum proposed in the Bill lacks quality, transparency and openness. People are being asked to vote without knowing what they will receive. The question will be difficult to frame, and as we have seen the Electoral Commission has already had problems with definitions of single tiers of local government.
	If the majority of citizens in a county vote against regional government, their county can still be destroyed because of the way in which the Government impose regional boundaries. We have heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) that 86 per cent. of Yorkshire and Humberside is governed by unitary authorities. Why should 86 per cent. decide the fate of the good people of North Yorkshire? He was right to say that we would give local authorities additional powers.
	The abolition of long-established boundaries needs a clear mandate; it should not, to quote the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George), be done by a trickle of minor empire builders and anoraks. The Government ultimately have the power to pick and choose when and where referendums are to be held. They are vague about when the trigger for a referendum will be reached. Threats of continuous periodic referendums will lead to instability and a reduction of long-term planning. The Government should have the courage of their convictions and let all the regions decide on the same date, instead of having a trickle of referendums. If there is a need for regional government, as Labour Members have said, let us have it now. Let us have referendums and test their case.
	The people of England do not live in regions; they live in counties, towns and villages. Their allegiance is to the immediate community of their country. Between county and country there are no intermediaries. I was born in Yorkshire, not Yorkshire and Humberside. Where I was born has nothing in common with north Lincolnshire. I now live in Essex, not in the eastern region. Brentwood has nothing in common with Cromer or Cambridge. The creation of an elected regional assembly will not create affection for a region that exists only on paper.

Austin Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman is becoming what Spiro Agnew would have described as one of the negative nabobs of nattering negativism. Has it occurred to him that exactly the same negative quibbling was used in the argument put forward by one of his Front-Bench predecessors against devolution in Scotland and Wales? Is he imitating that speech?

Eric Pickles: I enjoyed the hon. Gentleman's trip down memory lane in his earlier contribution, but when he was talking about regional affinity he kept moving from one region to another without understanding that he was talking about different regions.
	There is a case for co-operation between authorities along the M62 corridor, but that is not a pan-regional matter. There is a case for co-operation between authorities around the M25, but that is not a pan-regional matter. There is a case for co-operation between authorities along the southern coast, but that is not a matter of regions; it is common sense. The regions proposed by the Government are too rigid.
	Let me give the House an idea of the way in which regional assemblies try to garner support for regional pride. The south-east assembly had the opportunity to meet in various locations, including Aylesbury, Canterbury, Dover, Guildford and Windsor, to demonstrate the wonders of the region. However, it decided to meet in London, which best represents that great region, the south-east of England, and is more convenient than anywhere else in the south-east. I commend it on that decision—it was more honest than any other regional assembly and demonstrated better than any other regional assembly that the assemblies will be the Government's poodles. They will be the Government's representatives in the regions and will see that the Government's will is carried out, not the will of the people of the regions.

Nick Raynsford: We have had an interesting, varied and, at times, frustrating debate on one of the most significant issues that we will deal with during the course of this Parliament.
	The Bill represents an important further step towards the modernisation of our constitution following the measures already enacted to devolve power to Scotland, Wales and London. It reflects the commitment and determination of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister to give the people of England the choice of devolved regional assemblies. For decades, the needs and aspirations of the English regions were at best neglected and at worst ignored. The approaches of the past were either laissez-faire or XWhitehall knows best", and created a widening economic divide and a regional democratic deficit. The Government have been working hard to decentralise power, to make our politics more open, accountable and inclusive. The Bill is a major step forward in that process.
	We have had a variety of contributions. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), speaking for the official Opposition in a curiously muted speech, started by claiming that there was something wrong with devolution because unemployment in the UK was highest in areas with new tiers of government. Let us consider that curious concept. Not only did the right hon. Gentleman forget his party's shameful record of rising unemployment, which stained its period in government; he forgot that under the present Government unemployment has reduced to historically low levels in comparison with all our major competitors. If there is a connection between unemployment and devolution—the principle on which the right hon. Gentleman based his argument—devolution, where it has been introduced in this country, shows clearly that we can take action to tackle unemployment. That is our party's commitment—[Interruption.] I was laughing at the right hon. Gentleman, who proceeded to try to build a case for opposition to regional devolution on some curious comments from representatives of the CBI, effectively ignoring the fact that the CBI itself has a regional structure and is organised on a regional basis. Its director general, Digby Jones, at a fringe meeting at the Labour party conference at which I was speaking, made it perfectly clear that the CBI strongly supports regional devolution.
	The right hon. Gentleman then got into deep water by arguing that if about 25 per cent. of people voted in favour of a referendum, that was a technical basis for making that referendum valid—a point which his hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) effectively demolished. Finally, he was silent on the issue that he spent a lot of time raising in the House last week—the concept that the Government should hold referendums in every region on the same day. What happened to that policy? The right hon. Gentleman appears to have forgotten what he was arguing just last week. It is a typical case of the Opposition not knowing what they are doing.

Eric Pickles: I know that time is getting on and that the right hon. Gentleman has stayed up late. However, may I politely remind him that I raised that matter about five minutes ago?

Nick Raynsford: I remind the hon. Gentleman that I was referring to the right hon. Gentleman who leads for the Opposition.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd), in a passionate speech, made it clear that we are considering one of the most important constitutional developments in our lifetime. He properly made a distinction between affection for historical county identities—in his case, he spoke about Lancashire—as against effective administrative structures. I strongly agree with his contributions.
	Speaking for the Liberal Democrats in a thoughtful speech, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) indicated his commitment to regional government and democratic accountability, and rightly criticised the Conservative Opposition for their opposition to extending democratic accountability. He believed that our proposals did not go far enough, and gave us an entertaining list of quangos that he would like to see abolished. He also asked a number of questions, not all of which I am able to answer this evening owing to lack of time. He asked specifically whether we would publish a draft Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny. We are not necessarily opposed to that idea, but there are timetable issues that will determine whether that option is feasible. We will keep that under consideration.
	The hon. Gentleman asked what research we had undertaken on the ballot question in clause 2, and whether we had used focus groups. We did not use focus groups. We tried to use common sense, but the hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 gives a specific role to the Electoral Commission to test the intelligibility of questions. That is why we prepared a draft question and submitted it to the Electoral Commission, which has given its views. We will give those views careful consideration.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) announced at the start of his speech that he would not need 12 minutes to say what he had to say, although he ended up taking the full time to indicate that he was opposed to devolution and remained a fierce centralist. I differ with him wholeheartedly on that issue.
	The right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), who passed me a note to apologise for the fact that he cannot be present for the winding-up speeches, in a speech full of graphic images made a case for regional devolution—even if he differed from the views contained in our Bill and our White Paper. He said that he thought the Bill was produced by people who water their red wine. That, I thought, was rather typical of the right hon. Gentleman. He might have suggested that it was a Bill produced by people who water the workers' beer, but there was no such image. Instead, he described it as a Xmewling and puking" measure. As my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) pointed out, the right hon. Gentleman clearly started life on that basis.

John Greenway: In the absence of my right hon. Friend, will the Minister explain to the people of North Yorkshire why, if they vote in favour of the retention of North Yorkshire county council, the rest of the people of Yorkshire should overrule them?

Nick Raynsford: If the hon. Gentleman had been present throughout the debate, I might have had more sympathy for his intervention. [Hon. Members: XAnswer!"] I will deal with the question when responding to a North Yorkshire Member who raised questions during the debate and was present throughout the debate.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) questioned the existence of a north-west identity. He argued that no one can agree on boundaries because there are no natural boundaries. I disagree. I believe that we have a natural tendency to disagree about boundaries, whether they are at regional, county, constituency, local government or ward level, and such disputes rarely contribute to progress. We believe that we need to make progress on the Bill, and we do not want to be caught in a morass of boundary disputes.
	My hon. Friend also argued that the electoral system would give a platform to extremist parties such as the British National party. The 5 per cent. threshold contained in the provisions, as in London, is an important safeguard against unrepresentative extremist parties gaining representation on a small percentage of the vote.
	The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), in a nostalgic speech, celebrated the great municipal developments of the 19th century, but seemed a little less comfortable with the current manifestations of them on his own patch. On his point about a threshold, he will recall the unfortunate example of Scotland, where the existence of a threshold in the 1978 legislation resulted in the people of Scotland being denied an opportunity for devolution, even though a clear majority had voted in favour, thereby deferring the process of devolution for almost 20 years. I think that that is the strongest argument against thresholds.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby argued passionately about home rule for Yorkshire.
	The hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir Teddy Taylor) characteristically saw a European plot behind our proposals. I can assure him that there is no such plot.
	My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr. Borrow) believes that decisions can be more effectively made at a regional level. I agree wholeheartedly with him.
	The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) expressed concern about the powers available under our proposals, but supported the principle of regional assemblies. He was worried about the consequences of unitarisation of local government. I shall return to that issue in a moment.

Matthew Green: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Nick Raynsford: I am afraid I do not have time.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Joyce Quin) spoke in a thoughtful and well-considered speech about the important development of the yes coalition in the north-east, in which she is playing a leading and very important part. She rightly stressed that the White Paper makes a very good start on regional governance and argued the case for the use of postal ballots to help with turnout, perhaps in combination with other elections.
	The hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) was unsympathetic to regional government. He argued for greater devolution to local government, but was clearly unaware of the measures that we announced today dramatically to reduce the obligations on local authorities to produce plans and other red tape.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Lawrie Quinn) rightly highlighted the benefit of directly accountable regional institutions. He raised concerns about whether resource restraints would prevent the boundary committee from considering the need for local government reorganisation in the regions that may be interested in that. I can assure him that our primary test in deciding where to hold referendums will be the level of interest in each region. He represents North Yorkshire, which is not a separate and isolated part of the country, but part of Yorkshire and Humberside. It is right that any decision relating to the future of that region, whether or not it has an elected regional assembly, should be taken by all the people living in Yorkshire and Humberside.
	The hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) was opposed to elected regional assemblies and claimed that reorganisation would destroy the districts in his county, thereby neatly demolishing the Opposition's claim that what we are doing is all about abolishing the county councils. I could not have had a better case.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson), a strong advocate of regional government, argued that regional decisions should be taken at a regional level. We wholeheartedly agree. He also put in a strong bid for the city of Lancaster as the home for the new assembly.
	The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) opposed the idea of elected regional assemblies and asked about the use of public funds to promote referendums. I assure him that there will be no use of public funds other than through the Electoral Commission, whose role is to provide objective information to inform voters.
	I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt) to read chapter 2 of the White Paper, which relates to improving existing arrangements in the south-east and other regions.
	The hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) asked how the Government would assess the degree of interest and competing claims. I assure him that we have already consulted on that matter and will set out detailed arrangements during the Bill's passage through Parliament.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda) made an important case for unitary government.
	The hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) challenged the validity of regional boundaries and spoke for Cornwall in that regard. I disagree on the case for a Cornish assembly.
	The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles), who finished the debate for the Opposition, made a remorselessly negative speech that revealed why the Tory party is in its current mess, with nothing positive to offer.
	Since the Government came to power, we have worked hard to increase democracy, devolve power and break free from the over-centralised system of governance that we inherited from the previous Administration. The Bill gives the English regions the historic opportunity to decide whether to have an elected regional assembly. We are giving the people of England a choice that was denied them for far too long. Devolving power is central to providing public services, and I warmly commend the Bill to the House.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—
	The House divided: Ayes 141, Noes 389.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Main Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 62 (Amendment on second or third reading).
	The House divided: Ayes 386, Noes 134.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Bill accordingly read a Second time.

REGIONAL ASSEMBLIES (PREPARATIONS) BILL (PROGRAMME)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Orders [28 June 2001 and 29 October 2002],
	That the following provisions shall apply to the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill:
	Committal
	1. Clauses 1 to 4 of the Bill shall be committed to a Committee of the whole House.
	2. The remainder of the Bill shall be committed to a Standing Committee.
	Programming of proceedings
	3. All proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any further message from the Lords) may be programmed.
	Proceedings
	4. Proceedings in Committee of the whole House shall be completed in one day.
	5. (1) Proceedings in the Standing Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 19th December 2002.
	(2) The Standing Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
	6. When the provisions of the Bill considered, respectively, by the Committee of the whole House and by the Standing Committee, have been reported to the House, the Bill shall be proceeded with as if it had been reported as a whole to the House from the Standing Committee.
	Consideration and Third Reading
	7. Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
	8. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on the day on which proceedings on consideration are commenced.
	9. Sessional Order B (programming committees) made on 28th June 2001 shall not apply to proceedings on consideration and Third Reading.—[Derek Twigg.]
	The House divided: Ayes 318, Noes 178.

Question accordingly agreed to.

REGIONAL ASSEMBLIES (PREPARATIONS) BILL [MONEY]

Queen's recommendation having been signified—
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a) (Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with bills),
	That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Regional Assemblies (Preparations) Bill:
	(1) there shall be charged on and paid out of the Consolidated Fund any sums required by the Electoral Commission to meet:
	(a) the charges payable to counting officers in connection with a referendum held about the establishment of an elected regional assembly; and
	(b) sums payable in respect of increases in superannuation contributions required to be paid by local authorities in consequence of fees paid as part of those charges.
	(2) there shall be paid out of money provided by Parliament:
	(a) any expenditure of a Minister of the Crown—
	(i) in connection with a referendum held about the establishment of an elected regional assembly;
	(ii) in making payments to the Electoral Commission;
	(iii) in paying grant in respect of the expenditure of regional chambers;
	(iv) in preparation for elected regional assemblies;
	(v) in connection with the transfer of any function to such an assembly;
	(b)
	any increase attributable to the Act in the sums so payable under any other enactment.—[Derek Twigg.]
	Question agreed to.

ESTIMATES

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 145(2)(Liaison Committee),
	That this House agrees with the Report [21st November] of the Liaison Committee.—[Derek Twigg.]
	Question agreed to.

HOUSE OF LORDS REFORM (JOINT COMMITTEE)

Ordered,
	That the Lords Message [14th November] relating to House of Lords Reform be now considered.
	That this House concurs with the Lords in the said Resolution.
	That, in accordance with the Resolution of the House of 19th June in the last Session of Parliament, a Select Committee of 12 Members be appointed to join with a Committee to be appointed by the Lords, as the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform, with the same terms of reference, powers and membership as in the last session and that the proceedings of the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform in the last session of Parliament be referred to the Committee.—[Derek Twigg.]

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Industrial Organisation and Development

That the draft Potato Industry Development Council (Amendment) Order 2002, which was laid before this House on 23rd October, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.—[Derek Twigg.]
	Question agreed to.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 119(9) (European Standing Committees),

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 14394/01, draft Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading within the Community and amending Council Directive 96/61/EC; and supports the Government's objective of establishing a flexible, market-based instrument across the European Union in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions towards meeting the United Kingdom's international obligations and domestic targets on climate change.—[Derek Twigg.]
	Question agreed to.

PETITIONS
	 — 
	Stansted Airport

Mark Prisk: I wish to present a petition on behalf of the residents of east Hertfordshire, north and west Essex and the surrounding communities. In just 14 weeks, the petition has attracted signatures and support from more than 33,000 people.
	The petition states:
	We, the undersigned, oppose the construction of more runways at Stansted Airport because our area does not have the infrastructure needed to sustain such a development and because it would destroy whole villages and blight thousands of homes; severely imperil our wildlife and countryside; and overwhelm existing and planned road and rail transport.
	We therefore request that the House of Commons require that Her Majesty's Government to withdraw its proposals for the construction of more runways at Stansted Airport.
	To lie upon the Table.

Consumers for Health Choice

Desmond Swayne: I rise to present the petition of Mr. and Mrs. Brown of Fordingbridge, which has been signed by 230 of my constituents.
	The petition states:
	That consumers in the United Kingdom have for many years maintained good health by choosing to take safe vitamin and mineral supplements and herbal remedies; and the petitioners fear that the European Food Supplements Directive and the Proposed European Directive on Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products would severely restrict the number and range of such products on general retail sale in the future.
	The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons require that the Secretary of State for Health does all in his power to protect the rights of UK consumers by ensuring that such European legislation does not unnecessarily and unacceptably restrict the availability of natural health products.
	To lie upon the Table.

HARE COURSING (NORTHERN IRELAND)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Derek Twigg.]

Colin Pickthall: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this subject this evening. First, it is a pleasure to have my debate answered by my hon. Friend the Minister. I congratulate her on her ministerial appointment. I believe that this is the first Adjournment debate that she has done, and the coincidence that it should be on this subject is wonderful. It is an awful paradox that while most of us would like the Northern Ireland Assembly to be running again as soon as possible, all of us would wish my hon. Friend to continue in her ministerial role for as long as possible.
	I must make it clear at the outset that I recognise the strict parameters on this debate, and on what my hon. Friend can be expected to answer. Although I might stray into issues of cruelty at times, my concern is to explore and, I hope, illuminate the issues around the licensing of the netting of hares in Northern Ireland and associated conservation matters. She knows that, as the MP for Altcar, I have a long-standing interest in hare coursing and the unnecessary cruelty that it involves. That has led to my concern for the conservation of hares and the well-being of a magnificent animal that is under constant pressure from change in agricultural practice generally.
	The system for addressing hare coursing in Northern Ireland is a recent addition to my concerns. The Bill presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) would have included Northern Ireland in its embrace. The subsequent hunting Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien) did not do so. As yet, we do not know what the Bill to be introduced by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Rural Affairs will involve.
	The Minister is well aware that hare coursing in Northern Ireland takes place under Irish coursing club rules, and differs greatly from hare coursing in England and Wales. The greyhounds are muzzled and the coursing fields are semi-enclosed. In particular localities, there may not, at any particular time, be enough hares for the purpose of a specific event. Accordingly, club members will go into the countryside to collect hares. The latter are netted and put into containers for transport to the coursing venue. For that, the former need a licence.
	In late 2001, the Northern Ireland Assembly discussed concerns about the decline in the Northern Ireland hare population when it was debating the game laws. Most studies—by Professor Montgomery of Queens university, by the Northern Ireland species action plan, and by the biodiversity strategy for Northern Ireland—reveal a decline in hare numbers. The Irish hare is the only mammal selected for a specific Northern Ireland action plan, which, inter alia, states:
	XThe provision of refuge areas, adequate and varied food supply and freedom from disturbance are essential if Irish hare numbers are to be maintained at present levels."
	Records show that in 1864 there were 138 hares per square kilometre in Northern Ireland—I am not sure how that was worked out, but that is what I am told. Current records show that there are 0.6 hares per square kilometre in Northern Ireland. Even over such a long period, that is a pretty dramatic difference. The action plan of 2000 also states:
	XResearch is required to determine whether numbers are still declining".
	Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister can tell me what that research concluded and whether it informed previous decisions to license netting made by her predecessor.
	The Northern Ireland Assembly voted to ensure that the Minister responsible should not issue licensing for the netting of hares for coursing without being satisfied that it
	Xwould not endanger the hare population in Northern Ireland or any part thereof."
	I suppose that Xany part thereof" is particularly significant. That is part of the Game Preservation (Amendment) Act (Northern Ireland) 2002. What is the nature of the research data available to the Minister and to her predecessors that would allow such a judgment to be made, particularly on a local basis?
	I understand that the most recent estimates of the hare population in Northern Ireland range from 8,250 to 21,000. In other words, we have no real idea. It is one heck of an area to cover. Recent researches by Professor Montgomery suggest that the Irish hare population may, in some areas, be extinct or near extinct. The crucial point in the present context is for my hon. Friend to ensure that all future decisions on licensing made by her and her successors are based on clear and unambiguous scientific evidence such as may have eluded her predecessor.
	A new study has been initiated by the Environment and Heritage Service of Northern Ireland. Does my hon. Friend think that it would be invidious to license any further nettings until the results of that new study are to hand and have been examined? Will she tell me how long a licence lasts?
	Will my hon. Friend bear in mind the circumstances of netting and coursing in relation to hare conservation? Coursers claim that, because the dogs are muzzled in Northern Ireland coursing, hares are not killed but are later released. That sounds, at least, a gesture towards conservation. It is an argument that I have often used to hare coursers in West Lancashire. I say to them, XIf it is not all about blood and killing, why don't you muzzle the dogs?"
	However, in its evidence to Burns, the National Coursing Club of England and Wales claimed that muzzled coursing might be more inhumane than unmuzzled coursing. It said:
	XThe hare could be bludgeoned to death, involving considerably more suffering than if the dog had been unmuzzled."
	There are certainly videos showing hares in Northern Ireland being buffeted about, tossed into the air and mauled into the ground. Handlers often have to kill the hares as a result.

Lembit �pik: Although I know that the hon. Gentleman and I disagree about some of the substantive points in the general debate, does he at least accept that the middle way group seeks a regulatory solution that takes account not just of cruelty to hares but, more broadly, to all hunted animals?

Colin Pickthall: I know what the middle way group says and what its platform is. I also know that most people who espouse the middle way detest hare coursing, of all the blood sports. I understand the hon. Gentleman's point.
	I am not highlighting the relative cruelty of what goes on, but pointing out that there is, at least, an impact on hare numbers. In The Belfast Telegraph of 22 November, a piece quotes Ronan Gorman, the Northern Ireland chief executive of the Countryside Alliance. The article quotes his view that the decline in the Irish hare population was to
	X'a very large extent' due to changes in agriculture and that is was 'absolute nonsense' to blame coursing.
	That totally misses the point. No one is blaming anyone. We are concerned with the conservation of the hare population in Northern Ireland, as was the Assembly when it considered these matters. The issue of whether we blame agricultural changes and practices and/or hare coursing is almost irrelevant. Both, in some measure, are causing hare numbers to decline in that area.
	The process of netting and transportation might damage hares physically and in terms of stress. I do not know whether research has been carried out on that. If my hon. Friend knows, I am sure that she will put it on the record in one way or another. One aspect of those activities is their effect on the reproductivity of female hares. What research on that is available to the Minister when considering applications for licences?
	I have a few questions on the conditions for granting licences. Condition B obliges the coursing club to notify the Department at least 72 hours in advance of the date, time and location of any netting activities. Is that done in such a way as to allow researchers, scientists or academics to monitor the events?

Mark Simmonds: The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful and interesting case on legal hare coursing and the problems that that causes in Northern Ireland. Is he aware of the terrible problems in rural areas in Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom caused by individuals from urban conurbations who trample across farmers' land, which is often cropped, to chase hares illegally? Does he agree that additional police powers should be put into the hunting Bill that will come before Parliament soon?

Colin Pickthall: Indeed I do. I agree almost entirely with the hon. Gentleman. I know a good deal about illegal hare coursing and have done much towards doing something about it. If there is one thing on which hare coursers and anti-hare coursers agree, it is the horrible nature of illegal hare coursing. Not only does it destroy animals, which are left to rot in the fields, but it poses a threat to farmers, landowners and people who spot it taking place, an activity in which I have been physically involved. I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman. Illegal hare coursing happens a great deal in my area. I do not know for sure, but I suspect that it happens in Northern Ireland too. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will comment on that.
	Condition C says that netting and releasing may be subject to inspection by the Department. Is that done? If so, how often? Condition D says that all caught hares must be humanely marked to identify their place of capture. Who does that? Should not it be done by independent vets, academics or people who know what they are doing? Condition E says that surviving hares must be released into the locality. Is that monitored by the Department? How many are released into the environment, and how many have to have their necks wrung because they are badly damaged by the coursing? Condition G says that netting should be undertaken only by members of the club that has the licence. Is that monitored? Can we be sure that it is done by experienced people and that there is no commercial trade in netted hares?
	Condition H is a sweep-up clause. It says that the club must co-operate with Queen's university in research to monitor the condition and fate of netted hares. Is that done? If so, is the research thorough, satisfactory and made available to the relevant Minister? Condition I concerns the obligation on clubs to file a detailed report on all those matters to the Department within one month of the expiry of the licence. Is that evidence made public, and if not, why not?
	I could have made a passionate speech about the hare and its decline in these islands, especially as I understand that hares in Northern Ireland are generally smaller and weaker than English and Welsh hares which makes them more vulnerable to the activities that I have described, but that would have been unhelpful in this context. I hope that the need for our debate will be made otiose by a hunting Bill, but who knows how long that will be in the gestation?
	I realise that my hon. Friend is in a difficult position, and I have asked her a lot of questions. No one in the House has a finer record on animal welfare than her. Her present role restricts her to ensuring that all the mechanisms for the licensing of netting are properly used to ensure that the hare population of Northern Ireland is not further damaged and, indeed, that it is enhanced. I can think of no one more capable than her to do just that.

Angela Smith: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Mr. Pickthall) for his kind and generous comments. I accept his comments about my position but I make it clear that my ministerial appointment is temporary. We all want the Assembly to be up and running as soon as possible, and we work to that end.
	I thank my hon. Friend for raising this subject, because, as he said, it is of interest to me. In racing terms, I have some form on the issue. My hon. Friend has a reputation in this matter, being well known as a campaigner for conservation. His interest in hare coursing arises from his commitment to see hares preserved and protected. I share his concern about the protection of our biodiversity, and I fully support the aims of the recently published Northern Ireland biodiversity strategy.
	The netting of hares for coursing is governed by the Game Preservation Act (Northern Ireland) 1928, which was amended in 2002. Under that legislation permits are issued by the Department of the Environment, for which I am responsible. The permits are issued subject to a number of conditions, currently nine, designed to minimise the harm to hares and to avoid adverse effects on the hare population.
	In Northern Ireland hares are traditionally caught over a six-week period prior to the coursing event. They are individually marked and kept in a spacious enclosure until the event. On the day of the meet, the hares are coursed once by a pair of dogs and then allowed to escape into the enclosure. I have to admit that I have not seen evidence of that, never having seen hare coursing in Northern Ireland. However, I visited my hon. Friend's constituency to see the Waterloo cup on one occasionit was not an experience that I would care to repeat.

Iris Robinson: Does the Minister accept that the holders of the two existing licences stringently adhere to the conditions of those licences?

Angela Smith: I understand that there is only one existing licence; another has expired, or is due to expire on 30 November. I am not aware of the holders breaching the conditions, but I shall make some comments about action that we can take regarding monitoring.
	I am told that, the day after the event, the hares are returned to the place of their original capture and released. As my hon. Friend made clear, dogs are muzzled in hare coursing in Northern Ireland, under the Irish Coursing Club rules, and they cannot bite. However, I am interested in his comments about what can happen to the hare during coursing with muzzled dogs. He mentioned a video, and I would be interested to see it if he could get me a copy. I am informed that most hares are returned to the wild following the event and that only occasionally a hare has died while in captivity. I do not know and do not at this stage have access to the information about how many, if any, hares died during the process of capture, netting, transport and release.
	The Northern Ireland Assembly has considered hare coursing within the past year. It rejected an amendment to legislation which would have had the effect of banning organised coursing of Irish hares that were trapped or netted in Northern Ireland, but it introduced an amendment governing the issue of permits to net hares. That requires that the Department be satisfied that the trapping of hares for a coursing event will not impact on the hare population in Northern Ireland, or any part thereof, before another permit is issued.
	The legal advice is that in deciding to grant or refuse an application, the Department must have sufficient relevant evidence to support its view that the taking of hares by netting would or would not endanger the hare population in Northern Ireland or any part thereof. The Minister must therefore be satisfied that netting does not have an adverse effect.
	As is highlighted in the Northern Ireland biodiversity strategy, the Irish hare is an endemic sub-species not present outside Ireland. Historically it was widespread and common throughout Ireland, including Northern Ireland. However, a detailed survey of the Irish hare population during the late 1990s indicated that it had undergone a marked decline. Similar information was available to my predecessor, but we have now been able to update it.
	Estimates indicate that the present Northern Ireland population may be as low as 8,250 or as high as 22,000, but it is at critical levels in some areas. Professor Montgomery is currently undertaking a further survey for my Department's environment and heritage service. As a result of those figures and the concerns that have been expressed, the former Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions issued in October 2000 a local species action plan for the Irish hare. The Ulster Wildlife Trust is taking the lead in delivering that plan, which draws on current evidence to analyse the main factors causing loss or decline and goes on to draw up objectives and targets for protection of the Irish hare.
	Key factors thought to have a negative effect on hare populations include loss of refuge areas for daytime lie-up sites, conversion of species-rich grassland to ryegrass and clover mixes, increased levels of disturbance due mainly to high livestock densities on farms, increased use of farm machinery, illegal coursing, lamping and overhunting. The plan recognises that the provision of refuge areas, adequate and varied food supply, and freedom from disturbance are essential if Irish hare numbers are to be maintained at present levels. A number of challenging targets are set in the plan, including a target to double the present population of the Irish hare by 2010 over as widespread an area as possible. Improving the habitat of the hare is one of the most critical factors in hare conservation, and agri-environment schemes such as environmentally sensitive areas and the new countryside management scheme will have an important role to play. Hare sanctuaries or hare reserves will be set up. Greater public awareness will be promoted through the publication of management advice about hares.
	The plan also sets out the need to review and, if necessary, increase protection for the Irish hare under current legislation. It points to the need for further research into both hare ecology and population levels. My Department has commissioned further studies of the Irish hare with a view to considering what enhanced protection measures may be required to ensure that targets in the action plan are met. Legislation alone, however, will not ensure protection of the species. Greater public awareness of the uniqueness of the Irish hare will also be an important factor.
	Given the importance that my Department and all those interested in supporting our biodiversity place on that endemic sub-species, I will need to consider carefully the issue of permits for hare netting. Clearly, the issue of permits to net hares for coursing sits uneasily alongside policies that are aimed at conservation of the species. Any such permits will have to looked at within the wider review of the conservation of the Irish hare.
	I can assure my hon. Friend that all available and up-to-date evidence on the Irish hare will be carefully examined before any permits are issued. The wider public perception of any tension between the Department's conservation policy and the issuing of permits must also be considered. As I said earlier, greater public appreciation of the uniqueness of that species will be an important factor in the success of measures set out in the species action plan. I cannot remember his exact phrase, but my hon. Friend asked whether any future decision would be based on clear and unambiguous scientific evidence. I can give him an assurance that we shall of course look at and use scientific evidence. I agree that where a species may be under threat the general environmental precautionary principle is apt. It may take some time fully to develop enhanced conservation measures for the Irish hare, but in the meantime I will be cautious in taking any administrative action that may run contrary to the development of measures that have already been agreed by my Department.
	My hon. Friend asked a number of questions about the conditions for a licence, which I shall do my best to answer. If I do not address them all, I hope that he will take them up with me later. Condition B says that the club must give the Department at least 72 hours notice of netting. My hon. Friend was concerned that Queen's university and others should make preparations to attend netting attempts. I assure him that in the past year coursing clubs have been helpful when Queen's university has attended such attempts. He also asked about condition C on inspection by officials. Previously, officials were not present at every stage of netting and release, but in the past year they have been. I can assure my hon. Friend that my officials will do their very best to be present, and I see no reason why in future years it should not be a condition of the licence that they should be present. Of course, that would need co-operation from the coursing clubs, but in the past year my experience is that they have co-operated. There is therefore no reason why officials should not be present.
	My hon. Friend asked about condition D and whether the tagging of hares should be done by independent vets, so that when the hares are released, some assessment can be made of how they fare afterwards. There is no difficulty with that. An independent vet was present this year, and advised that the tag should not be invasive. I understand that he has indicated his willingness to be involved again in future. That was done with the co-operation of the coursing clubs, which I would like to see taken forward. We will look at the matter again.
	Condition E deals with surviving hares being released into the locality in which they were caught. That is part of the tagging process. If an independent vet tags the hares, there is a means of assuring that they are released back into the same locality and recording how they fare. That will be important to me and future Ministers when we come to make an assessment on the issuing of licences.
	Condition G stipulates that netting should be undertaken only by members of the coursing club. My hon. Friend asked whether my officials can ensure that those involved are fit people with sufficient experience. I do not think that it is the job of my officials to check the experience of those involved in hare netting, but officials from my Department would be present and check that people are authorised for that purpose.
	Condition H covers the club's co-operation with Queen's university. Again, there has been a positive relationship with the university. I should like more information on that. The coursing clubs have been co-operative and we will encourage them to co-operate further with the university.

Colin Pickthall: My hon. Friend has been exceedingly helpful. I asked whether we could be sure that there is no commercial netting to sell hares on to other areas. If she does not have that information now, I am happy to receive it at any other time.

Angela Smith: I am not aware of any such information, but if I am incorrect, I will write to my hon. Friend. I do not think that enough hares were caught even for coursing this year, let alone for any commercial activity.
	My hon. Friend asked whether the report could be made public. The coursing clubs issue a report to the Department. I see no reason why that cannot be made public. I will check the legislation, but I should think that it would be to the advantage of all if the information about the date, number and location of hares caught and hares released were made public.
	As I said, there is only one current licence, which expires on 30 November. For that licence to be used, application would have to be made tomorrow in order to give 72 hours notice. If such an application is received, I can give the House an assurance that my officials will monitor the conditions of the licence.
	Finally, there was a comment from the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mr. Simmonds) about illegal hare coursing. I share his views. Action is available to the landowner. In England, the charge would be taking game without consent; in Northern Ireland it is civil trespass with intent. I appreciate the problems and hope that the police could be involved in dealing with the matter. One of the things that make it difficult to police illegal hare coursing is the difficulty of explaining to people that one form of coursing is legal, while another form is illegal. I am aware of the disruption and distress that that can cause. I hope that I have answered all the comments. We shall monitor the activity closely.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes past Eleven o'clock.